Former President Richard Nixon was marked for death by the CIA.That’s just one of the bombshell revelations dropped by former Nixon aide Roger Stone in his explosive book – Nixon’s Secrets: The Truth About Watergate and the Pardon– set for a Sept. 2 release.Stone says the spy agency felt threatened by the former President who died at age 81 on April 22, 1994, because he continually pushed it for the dirt on President John F. Kennedy and the failed attempt to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in 1961.
“Nixon was at war with the CIA because they wouldn’t give him the dope on Kennedy,” Stone says.
But the CIA had its own shocking secrets to protect – mainly the agency’s involvement in Kennedy’s Nov. 22, 1963, assassination, Stone says.
Stone charges that vice President Lyndon B. Johnson engineered JFK’s shooting and was aided by the CIA. Johnson even used his own hitman in the plot, Stone says.
According to Stone’s book, The Man Who Killed Kennedy, CIA bigshots felt JFK had stabbed them in the back by refusing adequate support for the Bay of Pigs invasion, which the agency had masterminded.
And Johnson was also furious with Kennedy, who was planning to drop him from the ticket when he ran for re-election in 1964.
Replacing the slain Kennedy as President, Johnson spearheaded a cover-up that put the blame on Lee Harvey Oswald as the lone shooter.
In his new book, Stone writes that CIA operative Gerald Patrick Hemming said the spy agency considered Nixon a threat because of what he knew and plotted to kill him, too.
“Hemming said Frank Sturgis, a Watergate burglar and mercenary, and contract-assassin Edwin Kaiser, were given the hit,” Stone says. But when they learned the target was Nixon, Kaiser backed out.
” Stone says CIA plotters considered plans to rub out Nixon “at a VFW convention in Miami Beach or at the Republican National Convention.
But Nixon survived and even managed to avoid prosecution for Watergate by blackmailing the CIA and his presidential successor, Gerald Ford, says Stone.
Nixon threatened to expose the CIA’s involvement in JFK’s assassination.
He also said he’d reveal Ford, a member of the Warren Commission that investigated JFK’s murder, changed the autopsy records to make it appear that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman, says Stone.
“Nixon knew the CIA was involved in JFK’s assassination, says the author.
“And he knew the autopsy records had been altered. In 1996, declassified documents revealed indeed Jerry Ford changed the autopsy with a pencil.”
“Nixon said, ‘OK, fine – I’ll take everybody down – Jerry Ford, the agency.’”
“That’s why Ford gave Tricky Dick a “full, free and unconditional pardon,” says Stone.
According to the Minnesota Libertarian Party, Candidates of minor political parties in Minnesota need to gather 2000 signatures during a two week period that ends June 3rd to be listed on the ballot for state-wide races. That was what Holbrook was attempting to do when he was approached by five local park police officers.
“We were sitting in the parking lot of the park and the five volunteers who were with me were starting to sort our literature. A park police officer came over to us and asked what we were doing. I told them that we were going to gather petition signatures and he said ‘You can’t do that here.’ We know that we can we are legally allowed.” says Holbrook.
Because Holbrook and the LP volunteers were aware of the law, they explained their right to be at the park. Within 10 minutes another four officers were on the scene. Holbrook and those with him began recording the confrontation with police.
“The officers asked for my ID which I refused because I had committed no crime. He ordered that we stop filming him with our cell phone cameras which he said was illegal. He then grabbed me, twisted my arm and smashed me against his vehicle.”
Holbrook says that his shoulder was wrenched and injured and the handcuffs actually cut through the skin and Holbrook’s arm causing it to begin bleeding.
Where is the evidence that Iran has an atomic bomb program? Oh right, there is none. Where is the evidence that Iran has violated their NPT obligations? See above. Yet we have isolated Iran from the world economy and saddled its’ people with 30% inflation and forced them into a cash only society for over a decade.
It would seem that the real intention of the US is to destroy their economy simply because their leaders sometimes say bad things about us and our lil’ buddy in the levant. How dare they? How dare a 5,000 year old civilization that his been the off and on superpower in that region for 2,5000 years go its’ own way in defiance of the indispensable country. Bomb them!
Plant Will Process What Remains of Iran’s Stockpile
by Jason Ditz, May 29, 2014
As Iran’s civilian nuclear stockpile continues to dwindle, the bar is continually raised by warmongers looking to paint anything and everything as a conceivable proliferation risk. At the same time, those thin excuses are getting even thinner.
Last week the IAEA confirmed that Iran’s 20 percent enriched stockpile is almost entirely gone, converted into fuel rods for the Tehran Research Reactor. Now what remains, Iran’s low-enriched stockpile at 3.5 percent, is about to start conversion as well.
Iran’s plant for the conversion of 3.5 percent enriched uranium gas into uranium oxide fuel, for the Bushehr Power Plant, is expected to open in June, and Iran has already moved roughly half of its gas stockpile to the site in anticipation of that.
The 3.5 percent enriched uranium was never any real “threat” to begin with, as nuclear weapons require enrichment in excess of 90 percent, something Iran has never even attempted. Still, the conversion of the gas into oxide will remove yet another talking point that hawks have relied on to keep scaring people about Iran.
From the Brooklyn Museum: the piece is the last image in a Holocaust project the artist created with her husband, Donald Woodman.
This is part of Marc H. Ellis’s “Exile and the Prophetic” feature for Mondoweiss. To read the entire series visit the archive page.
Whatever your faith community or theological persuasion, on Easter Sunday let’s be clear: The world is unredeemed. No amount of “redeemed and not yet” theological hocus pocus will do.
Rituals have a hard time with reality. Theology is the easy way out.
Theology is patriotism without a national flag. Though, if you’ve noticed in our churches and synagogues, flags have a way of slipping in. Check out the pastor with the American flag by his side. Not to be outdone, the rabbi has Israel’s flag by his side, too.
Quite a patriotic scene.
But if we’re going to be clear about out unredeemed/unliberated world, we need to add the obvious: What we do and don’t do in the face of injustice defines our faith or lack thereof. Simple as that.
Easter and Passover place us in a bind. How can Christians celebrate Easter with their own history of Holocaust, previous events of atrocity – shall we speak of the aftermath of 1492 in the Americas? – and the injustice that well-meaning Christians perpetrate today? How can Jews celebrate Passover while the oppression of Palestinians becomes permanent?
The “no rescue” prophets aren’t going anywhere near this religious – and political – charade.
Where do the “no rescue” prophets go? Some Christians remain Christian in a radical mode. Some Jews remain Jews in a radical mode. The difference is one of expressed faith. Radical Christians deepen their faith to survive the exile that awaits them. Radical Jews leave Judaism behind as a form of irredeemable hypocrisy.
Or maybe exile is the Jewish way of embodying faith. Thank God, Hosanna to the Highest isn’t the Jewish way. Can Christians learn a thing or two about their faith by exploring this Jewish exile embodiment and holding back on their endless and triumphal resurrection proclamations?
The Christian religious/secular Jewish twain shall meet in exile. When both Jews and Christians realize that there’s no going back, something interesting is going to happen. Hold on to your hats.
The Jewish prophets today are decolonizing the Biblical prophetic – in order to set the prophetic tradition free.
Christians of Conscience are trying to pry themselves away from Constantinian Christianity – to set Jesus free.
Being seen at the Passover Seder and church on Easter Sunday to show everyone how Jewish and Christian you are can’t continue – can it?
The troubling question remains: Does doing Easter and Passover the “right” way set us free? Or no matter the intention, does it deepen our Constantinian entanglement?
We’ve had the innovative Easters and Passovers for a long time now. Everything is the same – and getting worse. Time for something different?
The “no rescue” prophets aren’t much help as yet another Passover/Easter season comes to close. They aren’t going to provide a rescue ritual to cover over injustice.
Chris Christie, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Jeb Bush came to grovel at the feet of this rich monster, whose only interest is that whomever gets his money must put Israel first and War with Iran at the top of the agenda. What does that say about their character? Kasich thanked Adelson for asking him to come. Said Kasich:
“Hey, listen, Sheldon, thanks for inviting me,” according to multiplereports. “I don’t travel to these things much, but this was one that I thought was really, really important. God bless you for what you do.”
Eric Alterman wrote:
If a Jew-hater somewhere, inspired perhaps by The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, sought to invent an individual who symbolizes almost all the anti-Semitic clichés that have dogged the Jewish people throughout history, he could hardly come up with a character more perfect than Sheldon Adelson.
www.mondoweiss.net
Adelson would install Netanyahu in the White House if he had his druthers — Avnery
Once again we count on Israeli journalists to shine a light on American politics.
First, here’s a headline and subhead from Ha’aretz: “Jewish money corrupted the Jewish state: Diaspora Jewish philanthropists, showering money on Israeli politicians, helped ripen the field for corruption; Olmert’s conviction is just a case in point.”
“early on in his career he [Olmert] came into close contact with too much Jewish money. I apologize to our more faint-hearted readers who may find that combination troublingly reminiscent, but the sad fact that Jewish money has corrupted a generation of leaders of the Jewish state is inescapable.”
Uri Avnery’s latest column is also about Diaspora Jewish money, in the person of Sheldon Adelson, corrupting both the U.S. and Israeli political process.
Flanked by Israeli bodyguards, Adelson grilled the American hopefuls. And what was he demanding from the future president of the United States? First of all and above everything else, blind and unconditional obedience to the government of another state:
Israel.
Wait, I didn’t know that about the bodyguards. Alex Kane and Annie Robbins filled me in. Politico:
He showed up 20 minutes late to a Friday morning RJC board meeting, zipping up to the entrance on his scooter flanked by two Hebrew-speaking bodyguards.
And three black bodyguard applicants sued in 2011 saying that the team is all Israeli:
[Adelson’s] “Executive Protection Team,” which for the past 14 years “has been comprised exclusively of former Israeli citizens who are white males.”
Back to Avnery:
Everything Adelson does is done openly, proudly, shamelessly. I wonder how ordinary Americans react to this spectacle of one billionaire – especially a Jewish one – choosing their next president for them.
We are told that anti-Semitism is on the rise in Europe and across the globe. In the crazy mental world of the anti-Semites, Jews control the cosmos. And here we have a Jew, straight out of the pages of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, trying to appoint the ruler of the mightiest country on the planet.
But I have no doubt that his right-wing Zionist passions come first. If he succeeds in installing his favorite in the White House, the US will become totally subservient to the extreme right-wing in Israel. He might as well put Netanyahu in the Oval Office.
Now reflect that NPR just did a long story about Adelson’s financial influence, without mentioning the word Israel once.
This is the direct cost of US support for Israel since 1947. It does not include indirect costs, such as 9/11 and the growth of the police state in the aftermath. It is the sum of figures given in the US Army War College study listed below and the costs of the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars:
Put differently, Israel accounts for almost half of the US national debt. Let that sink in for awhile.
There are of course costs for which no accounting is possible including the loss of respect and prestige the US once enjoyed though much of the world as the only non-colonial great power after decades of being Israel’s personal bitch, hypocrisy as the US continues the charade of brokering a “peace process” with a partner who has no interest in it whatsoever. Rather than promoting human rights around the world, in Israel the US is funding ethnic cleansing and apartheid. This for a nation that has a GDP per capita just below that of France.
Israel is not our ally. It is not our friend. It is in fact our greatest enemy.
Cost of Israel to the US
www.councilforthenationalinterest.org
Our uniquely massive support for Israel has cost trillions of dollars and multitudes of lives. It has diminished our moral standing in the world, lessened our domestic freedoms, and exposed us to unnecessary and growing peril.
The majority of Americans – as well as our diplomatic and military experts – oppose this unique relationship. Yet, the lobby for Israel continues to foment policies that are disastrous for our nation and tragic for the region.
If we are to have Middle East policies that serve the national interest, that represent the highest values of our founders and our citizens, and that work to sustain a nation of honor, decency, security, and prosperity, then it is essential that all Americans become active and informed. Below are the facts:
American taxpayers give Israel over $8 million per day
(See report from Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress)
This to a nation of about 7.5 million people – smaller than New Jersey. Israel has received more American money than any other nation on earth. It is more than we give to all the starving countries of Africa put together.
From 1950-53 Israel’s financial influx from the U.S. was one billion dollars; Israel at that time had 1.6 million inhabitants.
In the past 40 years, American taxpayers have given Israel approximately $200,000 per Israeli family of five.
This costs us even more:
US aid to Israel is given in a lump sum at the beginning of the fiscal year
Since the US is operating at a deficit, this means that we borrow the money, give it to Israel, and then pay interest on it long after it is gone.
Israel, on the other hand, makes interest from it. Congress has mandated that Israel’s aid be immediately deposited to an interest bearing account with the Federal Reserve Bank.
Additional financial costs: $3 trillion
* About $1.5 billion to Egypt and $843 million to Jordan is dispensed annually under arrangements made to induce these countries’ friendly relations with Israel.
* Billions of dollars have been lost to U.S. manufacturers because of the Arab boycott engendered by Israeli actions.
* Enormous and continuing costs to U.S. consumers of petroleum, which surged to such heights that it set off a world-wide recession during the Arab oil boycott imposed in reaction to U.S. support of Israel in the 1973 war.
Americans have a higher unemployment rate than Israel and 10 million families are reportedly sliding into foreclosure; yet Americans continue to give tax money to Israel.
Costs of the Iraq war: hundreds of thousands of lives & over $3 trillion
The same parties are pushing for a similar attack on Iran.
The Lobby for Israel overrules US experts
U.S. policies in the Middle East rarely reflect U.S. interests and values.
Instead, over the objections of a multitude of State Department and Pentagon analysts, they are largely driven by a variety of factors:
1. Special-interest lobbying. Fortune Magazine rates one of the many lobby organizations working on behalf of Israel, AIPAC, as the second most powerful lobbying Washington. Many analysts consider the pro-Israel interest group the most powerful lobby in our nation. It consistently drives U.S. policies, to the detriment of Americans.
By the late 1960s Senator William Fulbright found that U.S. aid to Israel was being secretly funneled back to lobbyists in the U.S., who would use it to lobby for still more U.S. money to Israel.
2. Israel partisans in the U.S. government and media: The efforts of a growing number of individuals with close ties to Israel (some are neoconservatives, others are neoliberals) who often hold key positions in U.S. administrations, the State Department, Pentagon, and media.
The US Ambassador to Israel stated that all US Middle East policies are predicated on their effect on Israel. This is a highly inappropriate practice and one that is replicated in no other region. US policies should be based on American interests and priorities, not those of a foreign nation.
4. Israeli-centric news reporting by the U.S. media consistently misportrays the current situation and the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
5. Hollywood movies and television shows, which often play a significant role in shaping attitudes and beliefs. These shows, frequently produced by individuals with ties to Israel, depict Arabs and Muslims almost always negatively, Jews and Israelis almost never negatively, and Christians both positively and negatively.
–Israel has stolen U.S. technology, and passed it on to other nations, some of them U.S. adversaries.
The Israeli attack on the USS Liberty
In 1967 Israeli forces attacked a U.S. Navy ship, the USS Liberty, killing 34 Americans and injuring 174.
An independent commission in 2003 by extraordinarily high-ranking U.S. military officers and officials found that Israel had committed an act of war against the United States, the US President had recalled rescue aircraft, and that the President had ordered a cover-up on the incident.
These statements, recorded in the Congressional Record, were not reported by U.S. news media.
Israeli ethnic expansionism has caused regional misery, instability, and continual conflict
Israeli aggression (Israel initiated all of its wars except one) and its violations of international law, human rights conventions, and UN resolutions, have created enormous hostility against it throughout the world. The US, as Israel’s number one funder, is increasingly imperiled by hostility created by Israeli actions.
Nuclear weapons pose danger both to the region itself and far beyond
Israel has refused to sign the nuclear proliferation treaty and the British American Security Information Council has found that in Israel “nuclear weapons are being assigned roles that go well beyond deterrence.”
While US intelligence agencies have so far found no indication that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, Israel’s possession of these weapons, combined with its history of aggression, create a compelling motivation for other nations in the region to acquire them for deterrence.
Israel frequently uses American weapons in violation of US laws, killing and maiming large numbers of civilians, women, and children.
Since this is funded by American tax payers, and shielded by the U.S. government, it is causing dangerous hostility toward the U.S. abroad.
Damage to civil liberties and the American way of life
This dangerous and unnecessary peril (diplomats note that before Israelthe US had no enemies in the region) has caused Americans to tolerate dangerous infringements on our libertyand violations of our Constitution.
This is causing deep damage to our character as a nation.
We would be far safer and our nation far healthier by heeding the wisdom of George Washington, the father of our nation:
“…nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave.”
These policies create tragedy and destruction abroad and at home. It is time to change them.
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Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first NATO supreme allied commander. Shortly after assuming that post, he wrote these words in February 1951:
“If in 10 years, all American troops stationed in Europe for national defense purposes have not been returned to the United States, then this whole project [NATO] will have failed.”
No reason for me to add anything else except one thought and let it sink in. We are the new Evil Empire, corrupt to the core, led by incompetent, corrupt bureaucrats, political parties and idiots. The biggest lie in history is probably “American Exceptionalism.” America is only exceptional in the presumptuousness of it’s lies. The perfect symbols for America are the gay, smug asshole from South Carolina, Sen. Lindsay Graham and the batshit crazy Sen. John McCain. The president this nation really deserves is Donald Trump; I hope it happens.
Foreign Affairs; Now a Word From X
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: May 2, 1998
His voice is a bit frail now, but the mind, even at age 94, is as sharp as ever. So when I reached George Kennan by phone to get his reaction to the Senate’s ratification of NATO expansion it was no surprise to find that the man who was the architect of America’s successful containment of the Soviet Union and one of the great American statesmen of the 20th century was ready with an answer.
”I think it is the beginning of a new cold war,” said Mr. Kennan from his Princeton home. ”I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their graves. We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way. [NATO expansion] was simply a light-hearted action by a Senate that has no real interest in foreign affairs.”
”What bothers me is how superficial and ill informed the whole Senate debate was,” added Mr. Kennan, who was present at the creation of NATO and whose anonymous 1947 article in the journal Foreign Affairs, signed ”X,” defined America’s cold-war containment policy for 40 years. ”I was particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe. Don’t people understand? Our differences in the cold war were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime.
”And Russia’s democracy is as far advanced, if not farther, as any of these countries we’ve just signed up to defend from Russia,” said Mr. Kennan, who joined the State Department in 1926 and was U.S. Ambassador to Moscow in 1952. ”It shows so little understanding of Russian history and Soviet history. Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are — but this is just wrong.”
One only wonders what future historians will say. If we are lucky they will say that NATO expansion to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic simply didn’t matter, because the vacuum it was supposed to fill had already been filled, only the Clinton team couldn’t see it. They will say that the forces of globalization integrating Europe, coupled with the new arms control agreements, proved to be so powerful that Russia, despite NATO expansion, moved ahead with democratization and Westernization, and was gradually drawn into a loosely unified Europe. If we are unlucky they will say, as Mr. Kennan predicts, that NATO expansion set up a situation in which NATO now has to either expand all the way to Russia’s border, triggering a new cold war, or stop expanding after these three new countries and create a new dividing line through Europe.
But there is one thing future historians will surely remark upon, and that is the utter poverty of imagination that characterized U.S. foreign policy in the late 1990’s. They will note that one of the seminal events of this century took place between 1989 and 1992 — the collapse of the Soviet Empire, which had the capability, imperial intentions and ideology to truly threaten the entire free world. Thanks to Western resolve and the courage of Russian democrats, that Soviet Empire collapsed without a shot, spawning a democratic Russia, setting free the former Soviet republics and leading to unprecedented arms control agreements with the U.S.
And what was America’s response? It was to expand the NATO cold-war alliance against Russia and bring it closer to Russia’s borders.
Yes, tell your children, and your children’s children, that you lived in the age of Bill Clinton and William Cohen, the age of Madeleine Albright and Sandy Berger, the age of Trent Lott and Joe Lieberman, and you too were present at the creation of the post-cold-war order, when these foreign policy Titans put their heads together and produced . . . a mouse.
We are in the age of midgets. The only good news is that we got here in one piece because there was another age — one of great statesmen who had both imagination and courage.
As he said goodbye to me on the phone, Mr. Kennan added just one more thing: ”This has been my life, and it pains me to see it so screwed up in the end.”
Today RT America anchor Liz Wahl resigned on air, claiming she disagrees with the channel’s editorial stance. And here’s what I have to say about it.
These days it takes a lot of courage to work for RT. Never before have I seen RT and its journalists bullied like this. See for yourselves what they did to poor Abby. First, she openly voiced disagreement with Russia’s stance on air – and was virtually made an American hero. But then Abby reminded everyone how much she disagrees with America’s stance as well, adding she takes pride in working at RT, where she is free to express her views. Less than an hour passed before Abby had her name dragged through something I have difficulty finding a decent name for this late at night. The US mainstream media even went as far as claiming we had orchestrated the whole thing as a publicity move. They labeled Abby a conspiracy theorist, bringing to light her past as an activist. In less than 24 hours, they first sang her praises and then excoriated her. All of this in front of her colleagues, including Liz Wahl. How do you think they felt watching that?
Yesterday I spent quite some time explaining to a New York Times correspondent why I consider Russia’s position to be right. I’m Russian. I support my country and I will fight for the truth for as long as it takes. Neither Abby, nor Liz, nor many other employees are Russian nationals, but foreign. And now their country is likening my country to Nazi Germany. For many years they have worked for RT in good faith, proving every day that a voice that stands out from the mainstream media can be beautiful and strong, attract an audience that grows daily. These are the people who were the first to tell their country about the Occupy movement, who were detained at protest rallies, handcuffed for hours and then tried in court for doing their job. These are the people who were outraged by US hypocrisy in Syria, Libya – you can finish the list yourself – and reminded the world who used chemical weapons most often, even resorting to nuclear bombs. These are the people who did things the Western mainstream media would have never done. But those were peaceful times. And now we’ve got a genuine war going on – no, thank God, it’s not in Crimea. It’s a media war. Every single day, every single hour the guys who work for us are told, “You are liars, you are no journalists, you are the Kremlin propaganda mouthpiece, you’ve sold yourselves to the Russians, it’s time you quit your job, and everybody is laughing at you, so change your mind before it’s too late.”
The storm of articles posted about RT over the last couple of days – literally tons of printed copy – looks as if it were written to dictation. Hardly any respectable media outlet refrained from lambasting and lynching RT journalists in articles or reports. Our employees listen to their colleagues, their fellow citizens, and their potential employers, as career prospects are obviously important to every journalist. How many could withstand this pressure? Well, some will and some won’t. Some sincerely disagree, as they believe their own country more than mine. Others are simply thinking about their future. And it’s hard for me to judge them.
This is all typical of a media war. We’re not the first and we will not be the last to go through this. During the Arab Spring, Al Jazeera staff in Lebanon made headlines by resigning en masse. Their Egyptian colleagues followed suit. Over twenty journalists resigned citing disagreement with the channel’s editorial line. That this happened without any pressure from the world mass media was due to the fact that, throughout the Arab Spring, Al Jazeera was completely in tune with the global mainstream. So no one sought to criticize the channel, on the contrary, everyone praised its coverage.
A couple of minutes after Liz made her statement, we found all the major news media in the world – as our exhausted spokeswoman put it, “CNN, NYT, pretty much everyone” – glowing with schadenfreude, as they lined up for official feedback from RT. This included those who had ignored the news of the Ashton-Paet phone leak revelation, as if it didn’t happen. A rival media anchor’s resignation is certainly much more newsworthy and more relevant to the Ukraine crisis than two European leaders saying opposition henchmen may have been killing people.
I can see very clearly why I continue to work for a channel that stands alone (!) face-to-face with thousands and tens of thousands of Western news outlets, showing everybody the other side of the story, under daily attacks from the media against which it can hardly fight back. It’s my country. There is no other choice for me. But the foreign journalists who work for RT across the globe do have a choice. Some of them might be asking themselves, “Why would I have to defend Russia at the expense of my career, my future, my reputation, why would I tolerate humiliation by my fellow journalists?” Few can say“Because I’m telling the truth, and there’s no one else to tell it.” Some will fail to find the answer and quietly resign. Others will perform their resignation on air in a self-promotional stunt, perhaps securing fantastic career prospects they wouldn’t have dreamt of before.
Standing out from the crowd is hard, sometimes unbearable. I wish the best of luck to those who can’t take it. To those who continue to do their best for RT, who know they are right even if the whole world says otherwise, I have to say I’m proud of you. IMMENSELY PROUD.
Olga posted a link to this article on another thread, but it really deserves it’s own post. News travels fast. Abby Martin’s denunciation of Russia’s “invasion” of Crimea occurred just last night on her RT program Breaking The Set. In this article, Roberts set me straight on a couple of items as well.
Gerald Celente calls the Western media “presstitutes,” an ingenuous term that I often use. Presstitutes sell themselves to Washington for access and government sources and to keep their jobs. Ever since the corrupt Clinton regime permitted the concentration of the US media, there has been no journalistic independence in the United States except for some Internet sites.
Glenn Greenwald points out the independence that RT, a Russian media organization, permits Abby Martin who denounced Russia’s alleged invasion of Ukraine, compared to the fates of Phil Donahue (MSNBC) and Peter Arnett (NBC), both of whom were fired for expressing opposition to the Bush regime’s illegal attack on Iraq. The fact that Donahue had NBC’s highest rated program did not give him journalistic independence. Anyone who speaks the truth in the American print or TV media or on NPR is immediately fired.
Russia’s RT seems actually to believe and observe the values that Americans profess but do not honor.
I agree with Greenwald. You can read his article here:http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37842.htm Greenwald is entirely admirable. He has intelligence, integrity, and courage. He is one of the brave to whom my just published book, How America Was Lost, is dedicated. As for RT’s Abby Martin, I admire her and have been a guest on her program a number of times.
My criticism of Greenwald and Martin has nothing to do with their integrity or their character. I doubt the claims that Abby Martin grandstanded on “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine” in order to boost her chances of moving into the more lucrative “mainstream media.” My point is quite different. Even Abby Martin and Greenwald, both of whom bring us much light, cannot fully escape Western propaganda.
For example, Martin’s denunciation of Russia for “invading” Ukraine is based on Western propaganda that Russia sent 16,000 troops to occupy Crimea. The fact of the matter is that those 16,000 Russian troops have been in Crimea since the 1990s. Under the Russian-Ukrainian agreement, Russia has the right to base 25,000 troops in Crimea.
Apparently, neither Abby Martin nor Glenn Greenwald, two intelligent and aware people, knew this fact. Washington’s propaganda is so pervasive that two of our best reporters were victimized by it.
As I have written several times in my columns, Washington organized the coup in Ukraine in order to promote its world hegemony by capturing Ukraine for NATO and putting US missile bases on Russia’s border in order to degrade Russia’s nuclear deterrent and force Russia to accept Washington’s hegemony.
Russia has done nothing but respond in a very low-key way to a major strategic threat orchestrated by Washington.
It is not only Martin and Greenwald who have fallen under Washington’s propaganda. They are joined by Patrick J. Buchanan. Pat’s column calling on readers to “resist the war party on Crimea” opens with Washington’s propagandistic claim: “With Vladimir Putin’s dispatch of Russian Troops into Crimea.”http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37847.htm No such dispatch has occurred. Putin has been granted authority by the Russian Duma to send troops to Ukraine, but Putin has stated publicly that sending troops would be a last resort to protect Crimean Russians from invasions by the ultra-nationalist neo-nazis who stole Washington’s coup and established themselves as the power in Kiev and western Ukraine.
So, here we have three of the smartest and most independent journalists of our time, and all three are under the impression created by Western propaganda that Russia has invaded Ukraine.
It appears that the power of Washington’s propaganda is so great that not even the best and most independent journalists can escape its influence.
What chance does truth have when Abby Martin gets kudos from Glenn Greenwald for denouncing Russia for an alleged “invasion” that has not taken place, and when independent Pat Buchanan opens his column dissenting from the blame-Russia-crowd by accepting that an invasion has taken place?
The entire story that the presstitutes have told about the Ukraine is a propaganda production. The presstitutes told us that the deposed president, Viktor Yanukovych, ordered snipers to shoot protesters. On the basis of these false reports, Washington’s stooges, who comprise the existing non-government in Kiev, have issued arrest orders for Yanukovych and intend for him to be tried in an international court. In an intercepted telephone call between EU foreign affairs minister Catherine Ashton and Estonian foreign affairs minister Urmas Paet who had just returned from Kiev, Paet reports: “There is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers, it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new coalition.” Paet goes on to report that “all the evidence shows that the people who were killed by snipers from both sides, among policemen and then people from the streets, that they were the same snipers killing people from both sides . . . and it’s really disturbing that now the new coalition, that they don’t want to investigate what exactly happened.” Ashton, absorbed with EU plans to guide reforms in Ukraine and to prepare the way for the IMF to gain control over economic policy, was not particularly pleased to hear Paet’s report that the killings were an orchestrated provocation. You can listen to the conversation between Paet and Ashton here: http://rt.com/news/ashton-maidan-snipers-estonia-946/
What has happened in Ukraine is that Washington plotted against and overthrew an elected legitimate government and then lost control to neo-nazis who are threatening the large Russian population in southern and eastern Ukraine, provinces that formerly were part of Russia. These threatened Russians have appealed for Russia’s help, and just like the Russians in South Ossetia, they will receive Russia’s help.
The Obama regime and its presstitutes will continue to lie about everything.
Sorry, I can’t help it. I’m a one-trick pony…plus I care about the misery my tax dollars enable.
After Latest Incident, Israel’s Future in FIFA Is Uncertain
Dave Zirin on March 3, 2014 – 4:21 PM ET
Their names are Jawhar Nasser Jawhar, 19, and Adam Abd al-Raouf Halabiya, 17. They were once soccer players in the West Bank. Now they are never going to play sports again. Jawhar and Adam were on their way home from a training session in the Faisal al-Husseini Stadium on January 31 when Israeli forces fired upon them as they approached a checkpoint. After being shot repeatedly, they were mauled by checkpoint dogs and then beaten. Ten bullets were put into Jawhar’s feet. Adam took one bullet in each foot. After being transferred from a hospital in Ramallah to King Hussein Medical Center in Amman, they received the news that soccer would no longer be a part of their futures. (Israel’s border patrol maintains that the two young men were about to throw a bomb.)
This is only the latest instance of the targeting of Palestinian soccer players by the Israeli army and security forces. Death, injury or imprisonment has been a reality for several members of the Palestinian national team over the last five years. Just imagine if members of Spain’s top-flight World Cup team had been jailed, shot or killed by another country and imagine the international media outrage that would ensue. Imagine if prospective youth players for Brazil were shot in the feet by the military of another nation. But, tragically, these events along the checkpoints have received little attention on the sports page or beyond.
Much has been written about the psychological effect this kind of targeting has on the occupied territories. Sports represent escape, joy and community, and the Palestinian national soccer team, for a people without a recognized nation, is a source of tremendous pride. To attack the players is to attack the hope that the national team will ever truly have a home.
The Palestinian national football team, which formed in 1998, is currently ranked 144th in the world by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). They have never been higher than 115th. As Chairman of the Palestinian Football Association Jibril al-Rajoub commented bluntly, the problems are rooted in “the occupation’s insistence on destroying Palestinian sport.”
Over the last year, in response to this systematic targeting of Palestinian soccer, al-Rajoub has attempted to assemble forces to give Israel the ultimate sanction and, as he said, “demand the expulsion of Israel from FIFA and the International Olympic Committee.” Al-Rajoub claims the support of Jordan, Qatar, Iran, Oman, Algiers and Tunisia in favor of this move, and promises more countries, with an opportunity at a regional March 14 meeting of Arab states, to organize more support. He has also pledged to make the resolution formal when all the member nations of FIFA meet in Brazil.
Qatar’s place in this, as host of the 2022 World Cup, deserves particular scrutiny. As the first Arab state to host the tournament, they are under fire for the hundreds of construction deaths of Nepalese workers occurring on their watch. As the volume on these concerns rises, Qatar needs all the support in FIFA that they can assemble. Whether they eventually see the path to that support as one that involves confronting or accommodating Israel, will be fascinating to see.
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As for Sepp Blatter, he clearly recognizes that there is a problem in the treatment of Palestinian athletes by the Israeli state. Over the last year, he has sought to mediate this issue by convening a committee of Israeli and Palestinian authorities to see if they can come to some kind of agreement about easing the checkpoints and restrictions that keep Palestinian athletes from leaving (and trainers, consultants and coaches from entering) the West Bank and Gaza. Yet al-Rajoub sees no progress. As he said, “This is the way the Israelis are behaving and I see no sign that they have recharged their mental batteries. There is no change on the ground. We are a full FIFA member and have the same rights as all other members.”
The shooting into the feet of Jawhar and Adam has taken a delicate situation and made it an impossible one. Sporting institutions like FIFA and the IOC are always wary about drawing lines in the sand when it comes to the conduct of member nations. But the deliberate targeting of players is seen, even in the corridors of power, as impossible to ignore. As long as Israel subjects Palestinian athletes to detention and violence, their seat at the table of international sports will be never be short of precarious.
Journalist Gareth Porter talks about his new book, “Iran, A Manufactured Crisis.” This book will probably not make the New York Times list of bestsellers, but in this 30 minute talk about it, he not only proves that the hysteria over Iran’s nuclear weapons program and the resultant decade of sanctions against it’s innocent civilians is not only entirely based on lies, but he identifies who is behind nearly all of those lies. Drumroll please…Israel.
– set for a Sept. 2 release.Stone says the spy agency felt threatened by the former President who died at age 81 on April 22, 1994, because he continually pushed it for the dirt on President John F. Kennedy and the failed attempt to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in 1961.
Last week the IAEA confirmed that Iran’s 
The 
U.S. policies in the Middle East rarely reflect U.S. interests and values.
By the late 1960s Senator William Fulbright found that 
In 1967 Israeli forces 
This dangerous and unnecessary peril (diplomats note that before Israel the US had no enemies in the region) has caused Americans to tolerate 
We would be far safer and our nation far healthier by heeding the wisdom of George Washington, the father of our nation:
Abby Martin