With the US war in Iraq supposedly having reached a good conclusion (or halfway decent … or better than nothing … or let’s get the hell out of here while some of us are still in one piece and there are some Iraqis we haven’t yet killed), the best and the brightest in our government and media turn their thoughts to what to do about Afghanistan. It appears that no one seems to remember, if they ever knew, that Afghanistan was not really about 9-11 or fighting terrorists (except the many the US has created by its invasion and occupation), but was about pipelines.

President Obama declared in August 2009: “But we must never forget this is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans.”

Never mind that out of the tens of thousands of people the United States and its NATO front have killed in Afghanistan not one has been identified as having had anything to do with the events of September 11, 2001.

Never mind that the “plotting to attack America” in 2001 was devised in Germany and Spain and the United States more than in Afghanistan. Why hasn’t the United States bombed those countries?

Indeed, what actually was needed to plot to buy airline tickets and take flying lessons in the United States? A room with some chairs? What does “an even larger safe haven” mean? A larger room with more chairs? Perhaps a blackboard? Terrorists intent upon attacking the United States can meet almost anywhere, with Afghanistan probably being one of the worst places for them, given the American occupation.

The only “necessity” that drew the United States to Afghanistan was the desire to establish a military presence in this land that is next door to the Caspian Sea region of Central Asia — which reportedly contains the second largest proven reserves of petroleum and natural gas in the world — and build oil and gas pipelines from that region running through Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is well situated for oil and gas pipelines to serve much of south Asia, pipelines that can bypass those not-yet Washington clients, Iran and Russia. If only the Taliban would not attack the lines. Here’s Richard Boucher, US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, in 2007: “One of our goals is to stabilize Afghanistan, so it can become a conduit and a hub between South and Central Asia so that energy can flow to the south.”

Since the 1980s all kinds of pipelines have been planned for the area, only to be delayed or canceled by one military, financial or political problem or another. For example, the so-called TAPI pipeline (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) had strong support from Washington, which was eager to block a competing pipeline that would bring gas to Pakistan and India from Iran. TAPI goes back to the late 1990s, when the Taliban government held talks with the California-based oil company Unocal Corporation. These talks were conducted with the full knowledge of the Clinton administration, and were undeterred by the extreme repression of Taliban society. Taliban officials even made trips to the United States for discussions. ¹¹ Testifying before the House Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific on February 12, 1998, Unocal representative John Maresca discussed the importance of the pipeline project and the increasing difficulties in dealing with the Taliban:

The region’s total oil reserves may well reach more than 60 billion barrels of oil. Some estimates are as high as 200 billion barrels … From the outset, we have made it clear that construction of the pipeline we have proposed across Afghanistan could not begin until a recognized government is in place that has the confidence of governments, leaders, and our company.

When those talks stalled in July, 2001 the Bush administration threatened the Taliban with military reprisals if the government did not go along with American demands. The talks finally broke down for good the following month, a month before 9-11.

The United States has been serious indeed about the Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf oil and gas areas. Through one war or another beginning with the Gulf War of 1990-1, the US has managed to establish military bases in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan.

The war against the Taliban can’t be “won” short of killing everyone in Afghanistan. The United States may well try again to negotiate some form of pipeline security with the Taliban, then get out, and declare “victory”. Barack Obama can surely deliver an eloquent victory speech from his teleprompter. It might even include the words “freedom” and “democracy”, but certainly not “pipeline”.

William Blum is an American, historian and critic of United States foreign policy. He is the author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military & CIA Interventions Since World War II. He has described his life’s mission as: “If not ending, at least slowing down the American Empire. At least injuring the beast. It’s causing so much suffering around the world.“Mr. Blum can be reached through his website http://killinghope.org .

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As we all know only too well, the United States and Israel would hate to see Iran possessing nuclear weapons. Being “the only nuclear power in the Middle East” is a great card for Israel to have in its hand. But — in the real, non-propaganda world — is USrael actually fearful of an attack from a nuclear-armed Iran? In case you’ve forgotten…

In 2007, in a closed discussion, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said that in her opinion “Iranian nuclear weapons do not pose an existential threat to Israel.” She “also criticized the exaggerated use that [Israeli] Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is making of the issue of the Iranian bomb, claiming that he is attempting to rally the public around him by playing on its most basic fears.” ¹

2009: “A senior Israeli official in Washington” asserted that “Iran would be unlikely to use its missiles in an attack [against Israel] because of the certainty of retaliation.” ²

In 2010 the Sunday Times of London (January 10) reported that Brigadier-General Uzi Eilam, war hero, pillar of the Israeli defense establishment, and former director-general of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission, “believes it will probably take Iran seven years to make nuclear weapons.”

Early last month, US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told a television audience: “Are they [Iran] trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No, but we know that they’re trying to develop a nuclear capability.” ³

A week later we could read in the New York Times (January 15) that “three leading Israeli security experts — the Mossad chief, Tamir Pardo, a former Mossad chief, Efraim Halevy, and a former military chief of staff, Dan Halutz — all recently declared that a nuclear Iran would not pose an existential threat to Israel.”

Then, a few days afterward, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, in an interview with Israeli Army Radio (January 18), had this exchange:

Question: Is it Israel’s judgment that Iran has not yet decided to turn its nuclear potential into weapons of mass destruction?

Barak: People ask whether Iran is determined to break out from the control [inspection] regime right now … in an attempt to obtain nuclear weapons or an operable installation as quickly as possible. Apparently that is not the case.

Lastly, we have the US Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, in a report to Congress: “We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons. … There are “certain things [the Iranians] have not done” that would be necessary to build a warhead. ⁴

Admissions like the above — and there are others — are never put into headlines by the American mass media; indeed, only very lightly reported at all; and sometimes distorted — On the Public Broadcasting System (PBS News Hour, January 9), the non-commercial network much beloved by American liberals, the Panetta quote above was reported as: “But we know that they’re trying to develop a nuclear capability, and that’s what concerns us.” Flagrantly omitted were the preceding words: “Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No …” ⁵

One of Israel’s leading military historians, Martin van Creveld, was interviewed by Playboy magazine in June 2007:

Playboy: Can the World live with a nuclear Iran?

Van Creveld: The U.S. has lived with a nuclear Soviet Union and a nuclear China, so why not a nuclear Iran? I’ve researched how the U.S. opposed nuclear proliferation in the past, and each time a country was about to proliferate, the U.S. expressed its opposition in terms of why this other country was very dangerous and didn’t deserve to have nuclear weapons. Americans believe they’re the only people who deserve to have nuclear weapons, because they are good and democratic and they like Mother and apple pie and the flag. But Americans are the only ones who have used them. … We are in no danger at all of having an Iranian nuclear weapon dropped on us. We cannot say so too openly, however, because we have a history of using any threat in order to get weapons … thanks to the Iranian threat, we are getting weapons from the U.S. and Germany.”

And throughout these years, regularly, Israeli and American officials have been assuring us that Iran is World Nuclear Threat Number One, that we can’t relax our guard against them, that there should be no limit to the ultra-tough sanctions we impose upon the Iranian people and their government. Repeated murder and attempted murder of Iraqi nuclear scientists, sabotage of Iranian nuclear equipment with computer viruses, the sale of faulty parts and raw materials, unexplained plane crashes, explosions at Iranian facilities … Who can be behind this but USrael? How do we know? It’s called “plain common sense”. Or do you think it was Costa Rica? Or perhaps South Africa? Or maybe Thailand?

Defense Secretary Panetta recently commented on one of the assassinations of an Iranian scientist. He put it succinctly: “That’s not what the United States does.” ⁶

Does anyone know Leon Panetta’s email address? I’d like to send him my list of United States assassination plots. More than 50 foreign leaders were targeted over the years, many successfully. ⁷

Not long ago, Iraq and Iran were regarded by USrael as the most significant threats to Israeli Middle-East hegemony. Thus was born the myth of Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the United States proceeded to turn Iraq into a basket case. That left Iran, and thus was born the myth of the Iranian Nuclear Threat. As it began to sink in that Iran was not really that much of a nuclear threat, or that this “threat” was becoming too difficult to sell to the rest of the world, USrael decided that, at a minimum, it wanted regime change. The next step may be to block Iran’s lifeline — oil sales using the Strait of Hormuz. Ergo, the recent US and EU naval buildup near the Persian Gulf, an act of war trying to goad Iran into firing the first shot. If Iran tries to counter this blockade it could be the signal for another US Basket Case, the fourth in a decade, with the devastated people of Libya and Afghanistan, along with Iraq, currently enjoying America’s unique gift of freedom and democracy.

On January 11, the Washington Post reported: “In addition to influencing Iranian leaders directly, [a US intelligence official] says another option here is that [sanctions] will create hate and discontent at the street level so that the Iranian leaders realize that they need to change their ways.”

How utterly charming, these tactics and goals for the 21st century by the leader of “The Free World”. (Is that expression still used?)

The neo-conservative thinking (and Barack Obama can be regarded as often being a fellow traveler of such) is even more charming than that. Listen to Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at America’s most prominent neo-con think tank, American Enterprise Institute:

The biggest problem for the United States is not Iran getting a nuclear weapon and testing it, it’s Iran getting a nuclear weapon and not using it. Because the second that they have one and they don’t do anything bad, all of the naysayers are going to come back and say, “See, we told you Iran is a responsible power. We told you Iran wasn’t getting nuclear weapons in order to use them immediately.” … And they will eventually define Iran with nuclear weapons as not a problem. ⁸

What are we to make of that and all the other quotations above? I think it gets back to my opening statement: Being “the only nuclear power in the Middle East” is a great card for Israel to have in its hand. Is USrael willing to go to war to hold on to that card?

William Blum is an American, historian and critic of United States foreign policy. He is the author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military & CIA Interventions Since World War II. He has described his life’s mission as: “If not ending, at least slowing down the American Empire. At least injuring the beast. It’s causing so much suffering around the world.“Mr. Blum can be reached through his website http://killinghope.org .

 Notes

1. 1.     Haaretz.com (Israel), October 25, 2007; print edition October 26 ^↩
2. 2.     Washington Post, March 5, 2009^↩
3. 3.     “Face the Nation”, CBS, January 8, 2012; see video^↩
4. 4.     The Guardian (London), January 31, 2012″ ^↩
5. 5.     “PBS’s Dishonest Iran Edit”, FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), January 10, 2012^↩
6. 6.     Reuters, January 12, 2012 ^↩
7. 7.     http://killinghope.org/bblum6/assass.htm^↩
8. 8.     Video of Pletka making these remarks^↩

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Update: Well, we did it. iWatch News corrected the order. Now Ron Paul is third from the top-as he should always have been. Not only that, they were ‘forced’ to correct the numbers as well, and use the correct quarter.The only thing left: changing that picture!

Update: Thanks to vigilant readers and their pressure, iWatch News has been scrambling since 3:00 PM EST, and the numbers on the post have been mysteriously changing …of course not the ‘order’ of listing, or the picture selection, or any explanation for such colossal belligerence …

Yesterday, as part of my daily news comb, I visited “iWatch News,” one of several dozen websites on my list of news outlets on government related scandals-revelations. I usually skim the headlines and stories to see whether anything gets my attention as coverage-worthy. Well, their top headline yesterday fit what I was looking for: “Candidate Super PACS.” It was brief, but boldly showcased data on how much money each major presidential candidate has raised and how much each has spent to date. I was happy to find an important but quick and hassle-free read without too many embellishing words or subjective spicing. So I began reading the list. Starting from the top they had the number 1 candidate based on money raised and spent:

 Barack Obama: Total Raised-$88.3 million Total Spent-$28.8 million  

Then came candidate number 2:

 Mitt Romney: Total Raised-$32.6 million Total Spent-$17.5 million  

After that came the third on the list, Number 3:

Newt Gingrich: Total Raised-$2.9 million Total Spent-$2.5 million  

Gingrich was followed by Number 4:

 Rick Santorum: Total Raised-$1.3 million Total Spent-$1.1 million  

And finally, there came the last one, the one all the way at the bottom, candidate Number 5, and naturally, I expected to see the loser of the bunch, the candidate with the least money raised and spent, in other words, the least viable candidate when it comes to raising money, which is one of the major indicators of the winner to come:

 Ron Paul: Total Raised-$12.7 million Total Spent-$9.1 million  

I was ready to get out of the site and move on to the next news site for my daily internet news surf, but then, my eyes caught the numbers listed as raised and spent for Ron Paul. As you know I usually don’t use cuss words, but the only way I can describe my strong reaction-surprise is ‘having a serious WTF!’ moment.

This list starts chronological, based on the amount of money raised and spent by each major candidate. The chronological ordering works as it is supposed to: starting with Obama with the biggest bucks raised, then to Romney with the second biggest money raised, and then something happens. What? They forget the number 3 candidate in the amount of money raised and spent, and instead list Gingrich as the Number 3 – who happens to have raised only a quarter of the amount raised by Ron Paul! Then, their chronological ordering starts working again, and they list the candidate with the least amount of money raised and spent- about 10% of Ron Paul’s amount. And finally, everything turns almost upside down: they list Ron Paul as the 5^th candidate, the last one, the bottom of the barrel, in raising money!

Not only that. I want you to look up and checkout the candidates’ photos above. I took these pictures from that same iWatch News story. Please do it. What do you see? A tough and confident looking number 1-Obama. A happy, confident and relaxed smiling Romney. Lip smacking and beaming Newt Gingrich. A typical silly male bimbo on his way out of the race, but too silly to realize it, thus semi-smiling-Santorum. And then, there comes the candidate they list as the last in money raising, bottom of the barrel, the one on the loser-spot – a real worried, grim and sour looking-Ron Paul.

Reality in this case: As far as raising money for the campaign goes, Ron Paul is the third candidate in the race overall, As far as Republican candidates are concerned, Ron Paul is number 2 in both raising and spending money.

We’ve been reading everyday on the establishment media’s belligerent attitude towards Ron Paul and all their attempts to avoid providing coverage when it comes to him. But this? At this level? Come on. This goes way beyond belligerence. It reaches ultimate pathetic levels and makes them look like fools. Or a better way to say it: their role as the establishment’s jokers. 

*You may want to check iWatch News’ fund-ers here to make a better sense of things. Here are two to give you an idea on what I mean by ‘establishment’:

George Soros’ Open Society Foundations

Rockefeller Brothers’ Fund

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Last week Boiling Frogs Post broke the newly brewing story-line in the war propaganda against Iran involving an alleged Iranian terror plot in Azerbaijan. Yesterday we had a follow up on the emerging ‘alleged’ details in the ‘alleged’ plot claiming Israeli diplomats and religious figures were the intended targets of the alleged Iranian assassination plot [All Emphasis Mine]:

Three Azerbaijani citizens who were arrested by security forces last week planned to attack Jewish targets, including Israeli ambassador to Baku Michael Lotem, a local media outlet reported Tuesday. Israeli sources also speculated that the terror cell members plotted to attack the embassy in Baku and the ambassador… The men are suspected of plotting to kill a rabbi and a teacher at the Ohr Avner Chabad Jewish Day School in Baku as revenge for the recent killing of a nuclear scientist in Tehran…Two of the suspects were identified as Rasim Aliyev and Ali Huseynov. According to reports, they received instructions from Balagardash Dadashov, who was in contact with Iranian intelligence and received a sniper rifle, pistols and explosive devices to attack Chabad emissaries operating in Baku.

…

As with many stories, especially those involving ‘alleged’ terrorism operations conducted by the nations on the list of our to-be invaded-occupied nations it is important to pay specific attention to the context, and other ancillary and related details and facts. Before we do that let’s note the most important fact in the case of Iran: which actor in the current global imperial pursuits has been the primary and most active force against Iran and for its invasion? I believe everyone would unanimously and very easily answer this question. Israel.

While the pressure and the venues of attacks on Iran have been growing and escalating- think nuclear arms development accusations, meddling in Iraq accusations, alleged assassination attempt against Saudi Diplomat in the US accusations …, we suddenly get a brand new allegation accusing Iran of plotting a terror act in Azerbaijan. Not only that, the targets of this alleged terror plot happen to be none other than Israel. If that doesn’t give you pause, make it a long pause, followed by firm skepticism, well, your mental faculties may be in need of a serious check-up followed by a thorough tune-up.

Now, let’s review the latest details providing needed context in the new allegations pointed directly at Iran by Israel and Azerbaijan.

Four days after we brought the readers’ attention to this significant developing story, four days late, the mainstream media began its coverage, of course with their own version. Here is a report by Reuters:

Authorities in Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic bordering Iran, have arrested two men suspected of plotting to attack prominent foreigners including Israel’s ambassador and a local rabbi, officials and media reported on Wednesday.

The National Security Ministry said the men were connected to an Iranian citizen who had links with Iran’s intelligence.

…

Here is an excerpt clarifying Azerbaijan’s position and its intimate ties to Israel and the US, but fails to mention its status as ‘To-Be-NATO Member’ soon:

Azerbaijan, a secular Muslim country, is home to more than 9,000 Jews and has friendly ties with Israel and the United States. A major energy producer, it exports oil to Israel and imports weapons and military hardware.

And here is the US setting the stage for the next wave of conspiracy in setting up Iran:

The U.S. embassy issued a warning to its citizens saying “the possibility remains for actions against U.S. or other high-profile foreign interests in Azerbaijan”.

…

Diplomatic ties between Azerbaijan and Iran are cool, but Iranian companies operate and have stakes in oil contracts in the Caspian Sea state, which exports around 1 million barrels of crude a day (bpd) westward through a pipeline operated by a consortium led by BP.

…

Also yesterday, Israeli President Shimon Peres personally saluted Azerbaijan for allegedly foiling the alleged terror plot:

Peres, attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, told Ilham Aliyev that Israel saluted his country for “saving lives on your land from a murderous terrorist attack.” Azerbaijan’s National Security Ministry revealed last week that it uncovered a cell planning terrorist attacks. Two Azerbaijanis and an Iranian citizen living in Iran were implicated in the plot. The two Azerbaijanis were arrested.

…

Here is what Aliyev emphasized:

Aliyev, according to Peres’s office, said the plot showed “to what degree we are in a difficult and dangerous neighborhood…Aliyev said Azerbaijan would continue to cooperate with Israel, especially on homeland security issues.

…

Speaking of relations getting more intimate between Azerbaijan and Israel:

During the signing ceremony SCC head noted that the State Customs Committee is interested in expanding cooperation with the Israeli Customs Directorate, “The agreement signed between the Azerbaijani and Israeli governments gives an impetus to bilateral relationships, and will accelerate the process of cooperation and integration of the parties.”

Azerbaijan has become an important trading partner with Israel on security and foreign affairs. Economic cooperation between Israel and Azerbaijan has grown significantly. In 2011, the trade between the two countries totaled more than $2.5 billion.

…

Remember those ‘conflicting’ reports on the ‘alleged’ Iranian assassination plot against the Saudi Diplomat in the US? You can refresh your memory here.  Well, this ‘alleged’ plot is also filled with ‘conflicting’ reports and details, already:

Conflicting reports have emerged about the terror plot. While local media said an Iranian-backed terror cell had planned to kill Jewish teachers at the Or Avner Jewish schooll just outside the capital Baku, other reports in the media claimed the men were offered $150,000 by Iran to assassinate Israel’s Ambassador Michael Lotem.

A spokesman for the Or Avner network of Jewish schools, however, denied on Tuesday night any knowledge of a planned attack. “The Jews of Baku and the administrators of the school have no information on what was reported in Azeri media last Thursday,” said the spokesman. “The community’s routine has not changed.”

…

Here is a video clip on this new alleged Iranian Terror Plot:

In the UK, the Telegraph also reported on the ‘alleged’ story, and of course, it added the usual UK twist and spice:

If true, the plot will be seen as the latest evidence of Iran’s intentions to strike at its enemies abroad. Last October, the US justice ministry said it had uncovered an Iranian conspiracy to use members of a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington.

…

Speaking of Britain, the following data is also noteworthy:

The volume of investments made by BP and its partners in Azerbaijan amounted to $ 35 billion during its activity in the country, BP Azerbaijan company head Rashid Javanshir said during a ceremony of signing the agreement on the support with the National Olympic and National Paralympic Committees… BP will continue its activity to develop the economy as a whole and oil and gas industry in particular in subsequent years, he said.

…

We were the first US site to break and cover this still-brewing story. We will continue our coverage and rely on you to disseminate this new scheme in our nation’s desperate attempt to invade-occupy yet another nation.  Please stay tuned.

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Last week we broke the newly brewing story-line in the war propaganda against Iran here at Boiling Frogs Post. The new scenario was originated, disseminated and promoted by a known member of the loyal propaganda machine of our global imperial pursuits, Radio Free Europe. According to the new story-line, our soon-to-be-NATO member intimate ally regime in Central Asia, Azerbaijan, claims it has allegedly exposed an Iranian assassination plot and Iranian terror cell in its capital city-Baku [All Emphasis Mine]:

Azerbaijan’s National Security Ministry (MNS) says it has uncovered a terror group that was plotting to assassinate public figures, RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani Service reports. The ministry said on January 19 that the group was planning terrorist acts and had illegally acquired firearms, military supplies, and explosives. The APA news agency quoted the MNS as saying that Azerbaijani citizens Rasim Aliyev, Ali Huseynov, and Balaqardash Dadashov — the latter of whom is living in Iran — coordinated efforts to acquire firearms and explosives.It said those materials were brought illegally to Azerbaijan from Iran.

The MSN said Dadashov was in contact with Iranian special service bodies and ordered the assassination of prominent foreigners living in Baku. It claims that Dadashov promised Aliyev — his brother-in-law — $150,000 for his work.The MSN said Dadashov had told his accomplices that he would discuss their plans with Iranian secret services.

…

Today, brewing in the background are new allegations and  further thickening of this new plot directed against Iran, providing further unsubstantiated details.  According to the unsubstantiated new claims those arrested by Azeri security forces last week planned to attack Jewish targets, including Israeli ambassador to Baku, Michael Lotem:

Three Azerbaijani citizens who were arrested by security forces last week planned to attack Jewish targets, including Israeli ambassador to Baku Michael Lotem, a local media outlet reported Tuesday. Israeli sources also speculated that the terror cell members plotted to attack the embassy in Baku and the ambassador.

…

The men are suspected of plotting to kill a rabbi and a teacher at the Ohr Avner Chabad Jewish Day School in Baku as revenge for the recent killing of a nuclear scientist in Tehran. The Iranian regime claimed Israel was behind the assassination. Two of the suspects were identified as Rasim Aliyev and Ali Huseynov. According to reports, they received instructions from Balagardash Dadashov, who was in contact with Iranian intelligence and received a sniper rifle, pistols and explosive devices to attack Chabad emissaries operating in Baku.

…

Azeri politicians are accusing Iran of creating provocations following the uncovering of an alleged terror plot to allegedly assassinate Israel’s ambassador to Baku.

“On one hand, Iran talks of Shiite Muslim brotherhood, but on the other it cooperates with and supports terrorists of Christian-Armenian,” said chairman of the country’s Civil Solidarity Party Sabir Rustamkhanly…

…

For the last few months the empire’s nuclear weapons allegations against Iran have produced very little results; they haven’t really stuck. Most likely the Saudi Prince-Ambassador Assassination Plot-Scenario was outsourced to a not very competent or bright Hollywood producer-director; it failed big time and it certainly was embarrassing to all secondary actors such as the FBI. The empire still hasn’t invaded Iran. The Caspian Sea is waiting, and so many are drooling. It must be time for a new scenario. A new script. A brand new actor. Welcome Azerbaijan, a thickening new assassination plot, an alleged scary terror cell in Baku, and alleged Israeli targets. The powers up there seem desperate, and desperation can do stupid things with irreversible damage.

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This podcast episode examines the early 20th century United States military occupations of Haiti (1915-1934) and the Dominican Republic (1916-1924), undertaken as an imposition of the Monroe Doctrine (1823) declaring Latin America as the “backyard” of the United States. The ruthless military occupations, inflamed by racism, supported by the media, and undertaken by the ruthlessly imperialistic and racist politicians who are today celebrated as champions of ‘democracy,’ resulted in the strengthening of state structures, establishment of brutal militaries, and exploitation by American corporations and banks, leading to the establishment of military dictatorships which dominated these countries for much of their recent history, while American economic interests reigned supreme. These incidents provide a brief, yet illuminating look at the nature of American imperialism as it progressed throughout the 20th century.

Listen to the podcast show here:

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The imperial establishment’s desperation to militarily go after and take over the last ‘real’ domino – Iran, has truly reached a peak, and with that desperation comes a new farfetched and fantastical scenario. Last time the script of their scenario was written based on a Saudi Diplomat actor. It was only three months ago when the puppet mainstream media jumped in with a made-up, dubious, far-reaching, murkily and vaguely-sourced story of the thwarted Iranian plot to kill the Saudi Ambassador in US. Here are a few excerpts from CNN’s fabulous-ized headline story that played around the clock for days, beating the war drums for its masters:  

U.S. agents disrupted an Iranian assassination-for-hire scheme targeting Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, U.S. officials said Tuesday…The Saudi ambassador was not the only intended target, U.S. officials said. The suspects also discussed attacking Israeli and Saudi embassies in Washington and possibly Buenos Aires, Argentina, a senior U.S. official said.

…

Of course CNN was not the lone wolf in the intense broadcasting and dissemination of this Washington script. The rest of the MSM puppets followed the same trend: Washington Post, New York Times, FOX … Not only that, the pseudo-alternative con outlets did exactly the same thing. Just check out the verbatim dissemination by Huffington Post and other ‘popular’ so-called alternatives. Thankfully we had enough facts, critical thinkers, and independent news fronts to expose all the holes in that concocted story:

A close analysis of the FBI deposition reveals, however, that independent evidence for the charge that Arbabsiar was sent by the Qods Force on a mission to arrange for the assassination of Jubeir is lacking. The FBI account is full of holes and contradictions, moreover. The document gives good reason to doubt that Arbabsiar and his confederates in Iran had the intention of assassinating Jubeir, and to believe instead that the FBI hatched the plot as part of a sting operation.

…

So that scenario script kinda failed. Of course the other long-cooking concoction on Iran’s nuclear weapons development has not gotten the establishment hawks far either. Even the mainstream has been grudgingly admitting the holes-filled allegations on dangerous nuclear weapons armed Iran!

You’d think all the debunked allegations and failed attempts would give the imperial hawks a bit of a pause to come up with a better concoction. At least go away for a while and rethink their strategy; no? Obviously not. Desperation can do amazingly stupid things to greed-driven, wild-eyed and blood-thirsty bullies in pursuit of expanded turf.  They just came out with a new concocted scenario and allegations. This time their lead actor happens to be Azerbaijan.

Our soon-to-be-NATO member intimate ally regime in Central Asia, Azerbaijan, claims it has allegedly exposed an Iranian assassination plot and Iranian terror cell in its capital city-Baku [All Emphasis Mine]:

Azerbaijan’s National Security Ministry (MNS) says it has uncovered a terror group that was plotting to assassinate public figures, RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani Service reports. The ministry said on January 19 that the group was planning terrorist acts and had illegally acquired firearms, military supplies, and explosives.

The APA news agency quoted the MNS as saying that Azerbaijani citizens Rasim Aliyev, Ali Huseynov, and Balaqardash Dadashov — the latter of whom is living in Iran — coordinated efforts to acquire firearms and explosives.It said those materials were brought illegally to Azerbaijan from Iran.

The MSN said Dadashov was in contact with Iranian special service bodies and ordered the assassination of prominent foreigners living in Baku. It claims that Dadashov promised Aliyev — his brother-in-law — $150,000 for his work.The MSN said Dadashov had told his accomplices that he would discuss their plans with Iranian secret services.

…

Now, interestingly the first place/source to start to disseminate our script writers’ new concocted scenario involving another ‘Iranian Plot’ was no other than … yes, you guessed it: Radio Free Europe. Check out this news’ origination by this long-propaganda machine of our global imperial pursuits here. The second source to pick up on it was no other than a Soros-Funded site on Central Asia here. Guaranteed: the other MSM outlets will be having a field day with this new propaganda. In fact, they’ve been hot on another related side story with the same actor written by the same writers. I kid you not; here it is: Azerbaijan claims that the recent cyber attacks that destroyed its government and news websites originated in … Iran! Let’s check out the headline on this today at …Business Week:

Jan. 21 (Bloomberg) — Cyber attacks that destroyed government and news websites in Azerbaijan this week mostly originated in Iran, government minister Ali Abbasov said. An investigation by Abbasov’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology found that of 25 attacks, 24 came from Iran and one from the Netherlands, Abbasov told reporters in the Azeri capital, Baku, today.

…

For the last few months the empire’s nuclear weapons allegations against Iran have produced very little results; they haven’t really stuck. Most likely the Saudi Prince-Ambassador Assassination Plot-Scenario was outsourced to a not very competent or bright Hollywood producer-director; it failed big time and it certainly was embarrassing to all secondary actors such as the FBI. The empire still hasn’t invaded Iran. The Caspian Sea is waiting, and so many are drooling. It must be time for a new scenario. A new script. A brand new actor. Welcome Azerbaijan, a thickening new assassination plot, a scary terror cell in Baku, and savvy Iranian cyber-terrorists obsessed with this dingy little country’s dingier-littler government and news websites.

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In the last few decades one never-changing modus operandi in our imperial pursuits and operations overseas has been the formation, financing, training, control and domination of our target countries’ military force. Egypt, Morocco, Kuwait, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia … whether here right in our backyard under joint Pentagon and military industrial complex mega corporations or abroad, through our tentacles-NATO member nations, we’ve always ensured holding the most important string in ruling and managing our overseas puppetries- their military. Because, admit it, the figure-head dictators come and go; rise and fall; are made and destroyed, easily and frequently. On the other hand, their ruling military elite are more of a constant. Think Egypt: ‘Bye-bye Mubarak, stay put military regime.’ However, all that seems to be changing. We are getting savvier, more ambitious and far greedier. We want more: more control. Thus, welcome our new extended imperial sphere: Police Force a la USA.

According to the latest news, of course not covered by US media, our NATO Member Turkey will be training the new Libyan Police Force. Let’s read this extremely important new development with even more important implications [All Emphasis Mine]:

Turkey has started negotiations with Libya to begin training the country’s police force, which is being rebuilt after Libya’s violent revolution that began in February 2011 and ended the 42-year dictatorship of Muammar Gaddafi.

A delegation from the Turkish General Directorate of Security, headed by Deputy National Police Chief Ahmet Pek, traveled to the Libyan capital of Tripoli on Saturday to discuss projects related to Libyan police training in Turkey. The Turkish delegation considered the issue with Libyan Interior Affairs Minister Omar al-Hadravi on Sunday.

The meeting was also attended by high-ranking Libyan security officers. The officials talked about the resumption of Libyan police education, which was interrupted during the civil war, in Turkish police academies. They also discussed the possibility of including primary vocational training in the Libyan police force for former armed insurgents, in Turkey.

…

Pek stated that the Turkish delegation supplied necessary equipment for Libyan police forces during their recent visit and said they will be delivered to Libyan leaders during an official ceremony in Tripoli this week.

…

We all know about Turkey’s ‘water-bearer’ position for the West as an important and the only Muslim NATO member. However, what is not well-known here in the United States, thanks to its media’s complete submission to government, military mega corporations and foreign lobby powers, is Turkey’s internationally recognized status and fame for its atrocious police brutality and abuses.

In a damning report, Human Rights Watch said complaints against the police for excessive force had risen sharply since the start of last year while the number of officers convicted had dropped. A total of 3,339 people had complained about police ill-treatment in 2007, up from 2,854 the year before, but only 48 of those complaints had led to convictions.

The 80-page report, Closing Ranks Against Accountability, recounts numerous cases of suspects dying or suffering serious injury at the hands of police, sometimes after being stopped for routine identity checks. Police frequently cover up evidence while accused officers are routinely exonerated after internal disciplinary proceedings, the report says.

The rise in violent incidents was partly attributable, he said, to laws introduced by the governing Justice and Development party (AKP), which has built its image on a reform programme designed to aid Turkey’s EU membership bid. These include a law permitting police to use lethal force before it becomes a “last resort” necessary to prevent a threat to life, another allowing officers to conduct identity checks without reasonable grounds for suspicion, and anti-terrorism legislation enabling suspects to be detained for 24 hours without access to a lawyer.

…

Turkey has held on to its record as one of the world champions in extreme torture practices thanks to the direct financial and training support from its US masters:

When a harsh report asserting that torture is widespread in Turkey was released this week, the surprise was not just the amount of damning evidence it contained, but also the source. Rather than being prepared by a private advocacy group, the report was the work of the parliamentary committee on human rights.

For years, Turkish leaders have sought to play down accusations that torture is widely practiced here. That will be harder after what the parliamentary committee found. Its report contains transcripts of interviews with many prisoners who said they had been abused. It also includes photos of torture equipment and floor plans that show where torture cells are supposedly located in various police stations. No report by a government human rights body has ever been nearly this extensive or graphic.

Committee members and investigators interviewed more than 8,500 prisoners during a two-year period. They also conducted unannounced visits to 50 prisons and two dozen police stations, said the vice chairman, Sebgetullah Seydaoglu.

“This committee has existed for seven years but it hasn’t been functioning properly,” said Mr. Seydaoglu, who represents the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, where the mostly Kurdish population has long complained of bad treatment by police. “In the last year we’ve become very decisive about our mission.”

…

Even Turkey’s financial and procedural backers in torture practices couldn’t help but admit to its status:

The United States State Department said in its latest human rights report that during 1999 “torture, beatings and other abuses by security forces remained widespread, at times resulting in deaths.”

Human rights advocates are unhappy with the government’s record. The bluntness of the new parliamentary report suggests that impatience for change is growing.”This report says what we have been saying for years, that torture is extensive and systematic in Turkey,” said Nazmi Gur, chairman of the Human Rights Association, which has often been at odds with the government. “This could be the beginning of progress toward meeting European legal standards.”

…

Maybe a few videos would better depict the Turkish police’s claim to fame:

Rather than filling many hundreds of pages with examples and reports I invite all readers to run a search for credible reports and documentations on Turkish police and its record on torture, violence and other brutalities.  This is the kind of police force and practices that have been deemed appropriate for the New Libya by US-NATO powers. The new trend has begun – we not only form, train, finance and command these nations’ military forces, but we now extend our ruling into their daily lives on the street via selecting, training, arming, financing, and controlling their police forces.

The United States has fulfilled its main objective on Libya: regime change; replacing it with its own regime, one that will be equally if not more brutal and abusive of its people. The only difference – the strings will be fully in its hand.

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Yesterday Justin Elliott at Salon reported on an international media-lobbying intrigue involving Bahrain, a Lockheed Martin executive and the Washington Times:

A top executive at Lockheed Martin recently worked with lobbyists for Bahrain to place an op-ed defending the nation’s embattled regime in the Washington Times — but the newspaper did not reveal the role of the regime’s lobbyists to its readers. Hence, they did not know that the pro-Bahrain opinion column they were reading was published at the behest of … Bahrain, an oil-rich kingdom of 1.2 million people that has been rocked by popular protests since early 2011.

The episode is a glimpse into the usually hidden world of how Washington’s op-ed pages, which are prized real estate for those with interests before the U.S. government, are shaped. It also shows how Lockheed gave an assist to a major client — Bahrain has bought hundreds of millions of dollars of weapons from the company over the years —as it faces widespread criticism for human rights abuses against pro-democracy protesters.

…

The story is worth reading. Just remember this is an itsy bitsy tiny little case; only one example of many more similar cases occurring regularly. Hello? Think about our Congress and over 400 lobby-able crooks in it. Think about our government providing perks and access to ‘select’ reporters for being good pet boys. Think about dime-a-dozen plentiful retired generals linking their MIC bosses to the mighty purchaser Pentagon…on a daily basis hundreds of prostitution transactions like the one with the Washington Times. Come to think of it, one major difference between the examples I’m providing and prostitution in the true sense of the term is that usually the American public is at the center of services and transactions provided. That is, the services and products offered are their hard-earned dollars, their liberties, their security, their gullibly misplaced trust…

Let’s take Salon’s exposé on the Washington Times. The paper and the reporter appear to be the prostitutes. Now, figuring out the pimp(s) and distinguishing it from the client is a bit more difficult. You see, at first glance it looks like Bahrain is the client, and the Lockheed Martin Executive is the pimp, right? But if you really look at it you’ll see Lockheed Martin as the ultimate beneficiary: too much publicity on our Bahraini puppet regime may bring a few sanctions, and those sanctions may include an arms embargo, and then Lockheed Martin may lose a few hundred million dollars (peanuts of course, but hey…). Let me show you one example of the stakes for LM:

SYRACUSE, NY, October 2nd, 2007 — Lockheed Martin [NYSE:LMT] has delivered an AN/TPS-59(V)3B ballistic missile defense radar system to the Kingdom of Bahrain. The radar proceeded smoothly through a site acceptance test in August and now is being used by the Bahrain Defence Force for air surveillance. In May 2004, the U.S. Marine Corps awarded Lockheed Martin a $43.6 million contract to provide the long-range radar system to Bahrain, along with associated supplies, equipment and services, as a foreign military sale (FMS).

So ordinarily, in more US Congress-like scenarios, we’d have the pimps aka the lobby firms; we’d have the client, let’s say a MIC firm or a pharma or a foreign country, and then, we’d have the prostitutes: our elected representatives…

In this particular case there seems to be an absence of a ‘pimp.’ Pretty cost effective, efficient, direct and smart: the client, Lockheed, goes to the prostitute directly and gets ‘his thing’ done, but the Arab Sheikh pays for ‘the thing.’ But wait a minute, the ultimate payment, the real dough, is going to ultimately be paid to Lockheed for all those ‘arms.’ So, in a way, we are looking at a sucker paying a client for going to and getting his ‘thing’ done with a media prostitute …

Okay it gets a bit confusing. We have these sucker puppet Arab regimes. We have MIC or Oil as ultimate clients, and then, we have the media as … what? It is the ‘John’ the client who is getting paid, so it is not exactly prostitution because that would be too noble for what these guys in the media are and do. It is more like a whore than a good ole fashioned prostitute. Then allow me to recap one more time:

In this latest US media exposé we’ve got a case of a ‘John’ and a ‘sucker’ and a ‘whore’; no?

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Have you noticed how it’s been all quiet on the Western MSM War Propaganda front? As more and more alternative news outlets are increasing their reporting on the real situation in Syria, as even the puppet Arab League is issuing observations contradicting previously reported ‘un-sourced and undocumented’ atrocities and a made-up huge death-toll caused by Assad’s regime, the mainstream media and corporate-funded NGO news fronts have been decreasing their Syria coverage. It is almost as if they’ve gotten ‘a black-eye’ and gone in hiding. Rest assured, there won’t be any retraction on previously publicized, that is, intensely, un-sourced, un-confirmed, un-documented, fictional death toll numbers and imaginary scenarios.

Let’s take a look at a few recent reports starting with an excellent piece at Asia Times today [All Emphasis Mine]:

Mistaken Case for Syrian Regime Change

What we are seeing in Syria is a deliberate and calculated campaign to bring down the Assad government so as to replace it with a regime “more compatible” with US interests in the region. The blueprint for this project is essentially a report produced by the neo-conservative Brookings Institute for regime change in Iran in 2009. The report – “Which Path to Persia?” [3] – continues to be the generic strategic approach for US-led regime change in the region.

A rereading of it, together with the more recent “Towards a Post-Assad Syria” [4] (which adopts the same language and perspective, but focuses on Syria, and was recently produced by two US neo-conservative think-tanks) illustrates how developments in Syria have been shaped according to the step-by-step approach detailed in the “Paths to Persia” report with the same key objective: regime change.

…

Arguably, the most important component in this struggle for the “strategic prize” has been the deliberate construction of a largely false narrative that pits unarmed democracy demonstrators being killed in their hundreds and thousands as they protest peacefully against an oppressive, violent regime, a “killing machine” [7] led by the “monster” [8] Assad.

Whereas in Libya, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) claimed it had “no confirmed reports of civilian casualties” because, as the New York Times wrote recently, “the alliance had created its own definition for ‘confirmed’: only a death that NATO itself investigated and corroborated could be called confirmed”. “But because the alliance declined to investigate allegations,” the Times wrote, “its casualty tally by definition could not budge – from zero”. [9]

In Syria, we see the exact opposite: the majority of Western mainstream media outlets, along with the media of the US’s allies in the region, particularly al-Jazeera and the Saudi-owned al-Arabiya TV channels, are effectively collaborating with the “regime change” narrative and agenda with a near-complete lack of questioning or investigation of statistics and information put out by organizations and media outlets that are either funded or owned by the US/European/Gulf alliance – the very same countries instigating the regime change project in the first place.

Then, the article sets about analyzing and exposing dubious MSM and Western-Funded dirty NGOs (You may want to see my previous report on how for months ‘AntiWar.Com,’ despite all appeals, disseminated and marketed the misinformation and propaganda by these exact same dirty sources here):

Claims of “massacres”, “campaigns of rape targeting women and girls in predominantly Sunni towns” [10] “torture” and even “child-rape” [11] are reported by the international press based largely on two sources – the British-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights and the Local Co-ordination Committees (LCCs) – with minimal additional checking or verification.

Hiding behind the rubric – “we are not able to verify these statistics” – the lack of integrity in reporting by the Western mainstream media has been starkly apparent since the onset of events in Syria. A decade after the Iraq war, it would seem that no lessons from 2003 – from the demonization of Saddam Hussein and his purported weapons of mass destruction – have been learnt.

Of the three main sources for all data on numbers of protesters killed and numbers of people attending demonstrations – the pillars of the narrative – all are part of the “regime change” alliance. The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, in particular, is reportedly funded through a Dubai-based fund with pooled (and therefore deniable) Western-Gulf money (Saudi Arabia alone has, according to Elliot Abrams [12] allocated US$130 billion to “palliate the masses” of the Arab Spring).

…

Please go read this stellar analysis by Aisling Byrne here at Asia Times. Bravo.

Russia Today has been reporting both sides and doing so with a fair balance. Here is the latest from RT:

Syrians Being Killed by Gangs & defectors

As Syrian forces reportedly continue to kill civilian protesters, armed rebels have threatened to step up their own attacks. Middle East expert Dr. Jeremy Salt says there is tunnel vision when it comes to deciding just who is doing the killing.

“In its report, the Human Rights Council said 4,000 [people have been killed in Syria to date]…but there was no information about where they got that figure from,” he said. “A few days later, Navi Pillay, who is the UN Human Rights Commissioner, stood up in the Security Council and said 5,000 – and the figure echoes around the world,” he told RT.
“I think it lodges in the popular imagination as 5,000 people being killed by the Syrian government – by the security forces, by the military – whatever. Whereas in fact, I don’t think there’s any doubt at all that a large number of military, of civilians have been killed by armed gangs and by defectors,” Salt explained.

…

Look, even the filthy-owned, puppet in disguise, Al Jazeera, who has been beating the War on Syria drums loudly for months, has begun backpedaling:

The case against military intervention in Syria

In this, the SNC repeated earlier appeals by the Free Syrian Army for a no-fly zone, as well as a few scattered calls in the street. The plight suffered by civilian protesters has indeed reached an unbearable level. This raises questions about how to achieve lasting change in Syria.

Foreign intervention paves the way for a dangerous strategic choice that opposition movements within and outside Syria should carefully weigh. It will be argued here that the struggle for change needs to be fought from within and transition to democracy peacefully implemented. This implies that foreign military intervention should, under all circumstances, be ruled out; domestically, resistance to the regime should also remain unarmed.

…

Ordinarily I wouldn’t ask our readers to waste their time and read this Arab branch of our MSM propaganda machine, but I am going to invite you to go and read the above piece and compare it to all their previous reporting on Syria in the last few months; including ‘filming a border city at 5:00 a.m. in order to claim town desertion by protesters!.’

I mean, come on people, even our puppets couldn’t find atrocity and genocidal acts to report back and appease their Western masters! And yet, the black-eyed MSM and corporate-funded and government-backed quasi alternatives are shameless enough to not retract their months-long BS reporting, statistics, and all that heavily promoted fiction.

Now, there are way too many solid and reliable real alternative news outlets to credit with excellent and critical reporting. I won’t be able to list them all, and I am sure many of you already know who they are. So I am going to list less than a handful and congratulate them on their relentless and vigilant reporting and editorials:

Asia Times (Especially Pepe Escobar)

Center for Research on Globalization

Tony Cartalucci’s Land Destroyer

Russia Today

Again, there are many others and they all deserve credit for fair and balanced, and most importantly, independent reporting on Syria. Thank you all!

Hmmmm. For the hall of shame, if I were to list all, I’d take several long web pages. I don’t believe you need that long list of reminders. Think NY Times, Washington Post, Fox News, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, Al Jazeera, News Week, Times …and keep going, and going, and going

On the other hand, I am going to list one major hall of shame member, my one major disappointment:

Antiwar.com

With the exception of Raimondo, Giraldi and a couple of other stellar writers there, their new additions, Ditz & Keaton, have been filling up their front page with all the culprit MSM headlines beating the war drums on Syria, and have been doing so for months. As I’ve said before, a few independent journalists and authors will be writing a series and providing astonishing statistics on AntiWar.Com’s recent troubling changes. Meanwhile I want to go on record and reveal that the new management has been refusing to publish any articles submitted to them on all documented contradictory, factual, reports on Syria. In fact, I have been banned and censored from even posting comments on their site (several respectful but critical comments were taken out, deleted and censored by their new managers).

You see, what really gets my blood boiling on AntiWar.Com is their name, title: Anti War, for Pete’s sake! And what these dubious new additions have been doing lately is the exact opposite. So I hope the good guys there would either kick out these infiltrators, or, just change their name to ProWar.Com. They made it to the top of our list of hall of shame contenders on Syria, Libya and beyond.

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This morning I woke up to the following news headlines. Let me correct myself: This morning I found the US media and their quasi extension reporting on stale, at least 6-month old US operations on Syria. Now, that’s much better. I think it is safe to assume that the media has been given a ‘green light’ by the White House and Pentagon to report on long-ongoing war preparations, aka ‘intervention’ plans, on Syria while making it sound as fresh-new-recent. Let’s read together:

Obama Administration Secretly Preparing Options for Aiding the Syrian Opposition

As the violence in Syria spirals out of control, top officials in President Barack Obama‘s administration are quietly preparing options for how to assist the Syrian opposition, including gaming out the unlikely option of setting up a no-fly zone in Syria and preparing for another major diplomatic initiative.

…

And here is the almost comical egregious part:

After several weeks of having no top-level administration meetings to discuss the Syria crisis, the National Security Council (NSC) has begun an informal, quiet interagency process to create and collect options for aiding the Syrian opposition, two administration officials confirmed to The Cable.

…

Right! According to these ‘reporters’, up until now our imperialistic hawks have been sitting on their butts and doing absolutely nothing on Syria’s months-long prewar crisis! Just read the following by MSM’s favorite source WINEP, and please try not to laugh:

Andrew Tabler, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that the administration was caught off-guard by how the opposition became militarized so quickly. The administration’s message had been to urge the opposition to remain peaceful, but that ship has now sailed, he said.

…

All right; I’ll forgive you for laughing out loud. I admit; I laughed so hard I ended up with the hiccups. Now, let’s look at the casual introduction of Washington’s main artery, front, in executing their next takeover [All Emphasis Mine]:

The options that are under consideration include establishing a humanitarian corridor or safe zone for civilians in Syria along the Turkish border, extending humanitarian aid to the Syrian rebels, providing medical aid to Syrian clinics, engaging more with the external and internal opposition, forming an international contact group, or appointing a special coordinator for working with the Syrian opposition (as was done in Libya), according to the two officials, both of whom are familiar with the discussions but not in attendance at the meetings.

…

Basically, the Washington Bosses are telling their ‘boys’ what they’ve been doing since last May in Turkey, inside the Incirlik base, but tweaking the time-line, changing it to  soon-to-come action plans.

A few months ago these same MSM dudes were given all the documents and witnesses on the operations mentioned above which began in May 2011. I broke the story (since the MSM and their quasi buddies refused to run it) in November. And let me provide you with every single plan-operation quoted by the media as ‘soon-to-come,’ and show you how every single one was already reported here at Boiling Frogs Post based on our military sources in Turkey and the US:

On November 21, we reported that:

The joint US-NATO secret training camp in the US air force base in Incirlik, Turkey, began operations in April- May 2011 to organize and expand the dissident base in Syria.

Col. Riad al-Assad has been in Turkey, working with U.S. & NATO, right inside the US Incirlik Base in Turkey, to do exactly what he vehemently denies: smuggle US weapons into Syria, participate in US psychological and information warfare inside Syria as the middle-man whom Syrian protesters tend to trust, and help with funneling intelligence and military operators across the border and night-time drop offs by air.

The HQ also includes an information warfare division where US-NATO crafted communications are directed to dissidents in Syria via the core group of Syrian military and Intelligence defectors.

Just compare the facts we reported on November 21 to the Washington ‘plans’ quoted by the Media as ‘soon-to-come’:

The options that are under consideration include establishing a humanitarian corridor or safe zone for civilians in Syria along the Turkish border, extending humanitarian aid to the Syrian rebels, providing medical aid to Syrian clinics, engaging more with the external and internal opposition, forming an international contact group, or appointing a special coordinator for working with the Syrian opposition (as was done in Libya), according to the two officials, both of whom are familiar with the discussions but not in attendance at the meetings.

…

Next, on December 3rd, we reported the following on the intentional censorship of these facts by the US media:

The story above only goes as far as ‘France’ and the French factor. It stops short of France and other NATO member nations led by the United States in NATO member country-Turkey.

I immediately started checking our infamous US mainstream media sites- still nothing on this significant information. I then contacted one of my high-level sources and asked why he had come to me with his documented report instead of going directly to the big guys. With several credible insiders as his corroborators and a high-level official in Turkey, he would have no problem getting their attention. And his response? Well here it is minus a few expletives:

Who said we didn’t go to MSM first? We got them the info back in October. First they were interested and drooling. At least the reporters. Then, they disappeared. We sat and waited for a few weeks, and no one followed up. It is Turkey. It is NATO. It is our CIA guys. The media hot shots would not touch those cases without State Department sanction attached…

By the way, our report, these confirmed facts, were reported by major international news outlets, and several major Turkish newspapers ran further confirmation reports. Here is my interview with Russia Today on the story:

Well, ladies and gentlemen, here we are: the US mainstream media has begun reporting on the real operations albeit with dictated time-line adjustments, twisted facts and a highly-adjusted tone. I am going to correct myself one more time:

The controlled reporting and propaganda by the Washington war machine has not been limited to the US mainstream media. Many popular quasi alternative channels have followed the exact same trend, the most troubling one being AntiWar.Com. For several months they refused to run any of these confirmed reports while they ran every single bit of propaganda coverage by the US mainstream media on Syria. Today, with the green light from Washington, and with the US MSM in the forefront, they ran the neocon-produced and widely neocon-quoted article on Obama’s not-so-secret plans on Syria. Check it out here.

I published a brief commentary on the very troubling switch of position and changes at AntiWar.Com, a site that I used to support and consider one of my favorites. Since their management change they have been banning not only me but other well-respected true alternatives. And they have been losing many supporters while gaining mystery-undisclosed funders. But the most troubling change is their consistent coverage of the New York Times, Washington Post and the rest of the US government and corporate propaganda machine. I have researchers who are compiling data on their recent changes, and running background checks on their new team members who have successfully altered this once truly valuable source of information.

I despise hypocrisy, and hypocrisy appears to be one of their newly gained characteristics. On one hand, they trash the US mainstream media and Soros-Funded quasi alternatives for smearing Ron Paul, and they pound us with the unreliability and falsehood of the MSM. And I completely agree with those positions. Yet, on the other hand, every single day they fill their entire website with the same exact MSM produced war propaganda and falsehoods. As I have said before, I hope it is not too late to put them back on track during this war-filled period when real AntiWar information sources are badly needed. And I hope you will all help with getting this accomplished. We have more than enough war propaganda machines, and cannot afford to lose the very few who were once on our side.

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I’ve been waiting; waiting for the ‘G’ word on Syria, and here it is, arriving right on time, as expected:

Arab League Observer: Assad Committing Genocide in Syria

A member of the Arab League observer team in Damascus told Al Arabiya broadcaster Monday that “what’s happening in Syria is genocide.”"This is a regime is taking revenge on its people,” Mostashar Mahgoub told the channel by telephone.

…

It is impossible not to recall the US media-marketed and sold false reports of invading Iraqi troops throwing babies out of incubators in Kuwait in August 1990 — reports that were used to build public support and urgency for the 1991 Gulf War. These claims were part of an elaborate propaganda effort by the Washington PR consultancy Hill & Knowlton hired by the Kuwaiti government. Let’s watch the stellar performance choreographed by our government producers-directors:

And then there was that comical trial of Saddam Hussein’s ‘genocide’ deeds in the 80s; emphasis on the 80s-during the era when our Washington rulers considered this  ruler a friend and supplied him with all he needed to keep ruling. You see, at the time, in the 80s, we couldn’t care less how and how many Saddam butchered, we looked the other way when he fried Iranians and massacred the Kurds … as long as he got the ‘genocide enabling weapons’ from us, and as long as he remained our dictator:

Rumsfeld was to discuss with Iraqi officials the Reagan administration’s hope that it could obtain Export-Import Bank credits for Iraq, the Aqaba pipeline, and its vigorous efforts to cut off arms exports to Iran. According to an affidavit prepared by one of Rumsfeld’s companions during his Mideast travels, former NSC staff member Howard Teicher, Rumsfeld also conveyed to Iraq an offer from Israel to provide assistance, which was rejected [Document 61].

Although official U.S. policy still barred the export of U.S. military equipment to Iraq, some was evidently provided on a “don’t ask – don’t tell” basis. In April 1984, the Baghdad interests section asked to be kept apprised of Bell Helicopter Textron’s negotiations to sell helicopters to Iraq, which were not to be “in any way configured for military use” [Document 55]. The purchaser was the Iraqi Ministry of Defense. In December 1982, Bell Textron’s Italian subsidiary had informed the U.S. embassy in Rome that it turned down a request from Iraq to militarize recently purchased Hughes helicopters. An allied government, South Korea, informed the State Department that it had received a similar request in June 1983 (when a congressional aide asked in March 1983 whether heavy trucks recently sold to Iraq were intended for military purposes, a State Department official replied “we presumed that this was Iraq’s intention, and had not asked.”) [Document 44]

…

Iran had submitted a draft resolution asking the U.N. to condemn Iraq’s chemical weapons use. The U.S. delegate to the U.N. was instructed to lobby friendly delegations in order to obtain a general motion of “no decision” on the resolution. If this was not achievable, the U.S. delegate was to abstain on the issue. Iraq’s ambassador met with the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Jeane Kirkpatrick, and asked for “restraint” in responding to the issue – as did the representatives of both France and Britain.

I encourage you to read further on mountains of evidence illustrating our selective support or oppositions to genocidal deeds of world dictators (Click here).

Last February, less than a year ago, we had another envoy declaring genocide for a nation deemed ready to be grabbed- invaded by the West:

Libya envoy accuses Gaddafi of ‘genocide’

Libya’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations has called for Muammar Gaddafi to stand down, accusing him of “genocide” and saying he should stand trial for war crimes.

“He has to leave as soon as possible. He has to stop killing the Libyan people,” Ibrahim Dabbashi told CNN and other hastily convened media at the UN in New York.

“Certainly the best scenario is to have him before the court, to prosecute him and to know from him everything about the crimes he committed before, whether it is the genocide of the prison of Abu Saleem or the genocide he is committing now or the disappearance of certain important personalities … and all the other crimes he has committed during the 42 years in power.”

…

You may accuse Washington and its tentacle media of many things-all bad, but please don’t accuse them of inconsistency. They adhere to their foreign policy imperialistic pursuits to the T. In Libya it started with mild adjectives on antidemocratic practices before it escalated to Genocide accusations, and the invasion a few weeks later. With Syria it’s gone from HR abuses to now, today, full-blown genocide. Meaning what? Less than a handful of weeks left for Assad?

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Cutting through the disinformation and spin, Sibel Edmonds and Pepe Escobar reveal back stories about the conflict in Syria that are not reported in the mainstream media.

Edmonds has deep sources in Turkey, Iran, Syria, and the US policy community, and has broken a number of recent developments at Boiling Frogs Post.  Pepe Escobar has also done great enterprise reporting and analysis at Asia Times.  Together, they add a great deal of information about the players who are fighting the Assad regime, the increasingly shrill calls for Assad’s removal from Washington and Paris, and recent reports of likely NATO-aligned fighters assembling near the Jordan-Syria border. 

Escobar sees this as a proxy battle between US/NATO/Israel and a growing alliance between Russia and China, with all eyes on the oil and gas reserves of the Caspian basin.  We discuss Turkey’s role in some depth, and its desire to crush the Kurds of northern Iraq and southern Turkey; we talk about Iran’s intentions toward Syria and Iraq after the US withdrawal, and Iran’s own “Kurdish problem”.  Escobar predicts that 2012 will be a year of “creative destruction”, and sees a return to pre-9/11 dynamics in the region.  He also describes the House of Saud as the international center of the counter-revolution in response to the “Arab Spring”. 

Edmonds, who lived in Iran at the start of the Islamic revolution, talks about Iran’s interests and Jordan’s billions of dollars in US military aid since 2007.  It’s best to look at a map of the region as you listen, so you can appreciate the geographical and resource ties of the various neighbors.

Listen to the interview here @ the Peter B. Collins Show: Click Here

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Let’s start with Jordan. Last week we broke the story on reported US-NATO troops and operations in Jordan- on the Jordanian-Syrian border. Follow-ups to our report were carried out by only a few select international news organizations. Pepe Escobar had an excellent article on that (see here).

Today I received this report on the generous financial aid granted to Jordan by the United States.

US to Provide Jordan with $660 Million in Aid in 2012

AMMAN, Dec. 20 (Xinhua) — The United States will provide Jordan with 660 million U.S. dollars in 2012 as economic and military assistance, Jordan’s ministry of planning and international cooperation said Tuesday…The U.S. assistance to Jordan from 2007 to 2011 reached 2.4 billion, according to the ministry.
…

You see, Jordan is fairly dependent on US generosity, aka military-financial aid. And as expected, that dependency tends to ‘color’ a lot of things. Come to think of it, almost every member of the so-called Arab League appears to have similar dependencies: US financial-military aid and support to maintain and sustain their regimes’ existence. Hello, you remember our atrocious Bahrain regime, no? Oh well, they too are part of this ‘Arab League.’ So basically, these dependent puppet dictator regimes are now in charge of determining Syria’s level of dictatorship and soon–to-come final destiny. Ironic, no? Okay, I’ll have more on this when I reach the ‘calm’ period…

Next, I want you to monitor the Antiwar.Com website for a while. This once-upon-a-time excellent website has been going through tremendous not so pretty changes. Coincidentally, these changes coincide with recent mysterious appearances of their donor angels. What I want you to look for and keep tabs on:

1- More and more they’ve been citing articles and news from their once-culprit foe US MSM. Their updates are filled with NYT, WP, CNN, Huffington Post …created twists and spins.

2- If you remember, a few months ago they put on this publicity and PR campaign for the Soros-Rockefeller funded NGO who actually gave Obama an award for being the most transparent president of the United States.

3- Check out their author column. Do you notice my name there? Well, since the unnamed mysterious donors showed up, about 2 years ago, to round up their half a million dollars a year fund, they have decided to keep my name but completely censor anything I write on their ‘once-upon-a-time’ issues: police state, perpetual wars, secrecy, whistleblowers…

4- Contrary to their title, name, they have been loudly and repeatedly and unquestioningly reporting only the unsupported numbers killed by the Assad regime in Syria, Assad’s alleged inflicted massacres, and …Now, for a site called AntiWar, they are either willingly or unintentionally beating the war drums and spreading unconfirmed propaganda, exactly the same way our infamous MSM has been doing…

It is truly a shame. I like and have been following a few of their excellent editorial writers such as Raimondo and Giraldi. They usually have a good selection of editorials. And as I said, they used to be exemplary as an independent news roundup site on civil liberties and war related topics. 

I’ll have more on AW, and will inquire about their unnamed mysterious funder angels, but please go and review their last two year archives, and start accumulating your own research data…You may also want to send them e-mails-notes and encourage them to go back to what they used to be: an alternative, not an echo wall for the MSM. Hopefully they are not beyond rescue, and if they are, and they prove to be, then, I suggest their public donors look elsewhere to support…

I’ll be on Russia Today for an interview. I’ll post the clip as soon as it becomes available.

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In the last few years a commonly and frequently used catch phrase among US policy makers and movers and shakers of the think tank industry when it comes to their ‘vision’ for the new Middle East has been ‘Moderate Islam.’ However, there is a literal and rational definition of ‘Moderately Islamic Government,’ then there is the real meaning, interpretation, implications and application of the term meant and used by the US and its Western extension when it comes to the New World Order. In a recent excellent analysis Professor James Petras sums up the US Empire’s new vehicle of choice for its global order in the Muslim world today:

“Moderate” Islamists have become the Empire’s ‘contraceptive of choice’ against any chance the massive Arab peoples’ revolt might give birth to substantive egalitarian social changes and bring those brutal pro- western officials, responsible for so many crimes against humanity, to justice .

The West and their client officials in the military and police have agreed to a kind of “power-sharing’ with the moderate/respectable (read ‘reactionary’) Islamist parties. The Islamists would be responsible for imposing orthodox economic policies and re-establishing ‘order’ (i.e. bolstering the existing one) in partnership with pro-multinational bank economists and pro US-EU generals and security officials.

…

The most frequently cited example by the ruling Western elites for their ideal ‘Moderate Islamic’ government has been the AKP government of Turkey, in power since 2001. The AK Party portrays itself as a liberal conservative party in the Turkish political spectrum that advocates a liberal market economy and Turkish membership in the European Union. In 2005, the AK Party was granted observer membership in the European People’s Party.

Dr. Petras’ description of Western-Chosen and Western-Favored ‘Moderate Islamic Government’ fits Turkey’s AKP leadership to a T. This Western role model for the Muslim ‘Arab world’ has suavely maintained popular support by maintaining a balance between an illusionary Islamic stand and rhetoric, a for-show-only tough stand on Israel, and carrying out its  daily US-NATO dictated to-do list and behind-the-scenes appeasement of its Western masters in the military and financial fields.

Turkey’s recent and sudden change of position on Syria is an excellent example illustrating the real meaning of Western Ideal Islamic government. Just check the headlines on developments in Syria-Turkey relations in the last few months, and you’ll see what is meant by a Western-Approved Moderate Islamic government, aka submissive puppy state governing under the banner of Islam and Allah for show while fully performing for their Western puppy-masters.

I reported on the ongoing joint US-NATO secret training camp in the US Air Force base in Incirlik, Turkey, which began operations in April- May 2011 to organize and expand the dissident base in Syria. I broke that story on November 21, here at Boiling Frogs Post, based on information provided to me by multiple sources including highly credible insiders in Turkey and government insiders here in the US. Of course the story is still completely blacked out by the US media until further notice from their government masters. However, you’ll find no shortage of daily news on Turkey’s toughly-spoken threats, viciously imposed sanctions, and its harboring of Free Syrian Army-Rebels.

What you won’t find in the Western media is the almost intimate relationship between Syria and Turkey as recent as a year ago. That context would bring about obvious questions, and questions would enforce critical thinking, and critical thinking is one thing our masters and their media extensions don’t want you to get into. So I’ll take it upon myself to provide you with a brief background on how things were between the two nations until Western Masters snapped their fingers for their favorite moderately Islamic government in Turkey.

In May 2010, during President Assad’s visit to Turkey, the Turkish President made the following statement during a press conference:

For his part, President Gul pointed out in his speech that Turkey shares long borders with Syria, and that there are big joint projects for the interests of the two countries’ peoples, noting that important and significant developments have recently taken place in both countries, and that relations between them, carried out by officials and on the popular levels, are based on solid foundations.

President Assad reaffirmed the same sentiment:

He affirmed that Syrian-Turkish relations and their considerable positive outcomes have become a reality in politics, economy and all other fields that no one can deny. “In the past when we said reality it meant having something imposed on us and accepting it, but today this status quo is imposed and created itself by itself… It is a reality that is subject to our interests. We are not subject to it at all. It has not come from outside… The content of this reality is our mutual need for each other as well as our joint interests and similar cultures.”

…

The following report is from an April 2009 article published by Zaman:

As a sign of increased confidence in relations, Turkey and neighboring Syria plan to sign a letter of intent giving the green light for cooperation in the defense industry. The letter of intent will be signed on the sidelines of the 9th International Defense Industry Fair (IDEF’09), due to start today in Istanbul at the Tüyap Fair, Convention and Congress Center in Istanbul’s Büyükçekmece. Turkish defense industry sources told Today’s Zaman that the letter of intent to be signed between the two countries is a sign of the level of political relations reached between Turkey and Syria.

…

And this article in May 2009 emphasizes the close relationship and similarities between Presidents Gul and Assad, and the plans for furthering trade agreements-relations between Turkey and Syria:

Qabalan, a long-time journalist, presented his credentials to President Gül last Monday. He noted that his private talk with Gül at the Çankaya presidential palace was the best 15 or 20 minutes of his life. “He is a perfect man and a perfect leader,” he said of President Gül. As a journalist, Qabalan had conducted an interview with Gül during Syrian President Bashar Assad’s 2004 visit to Turkey. He described Gül as a strikingly modest person and said he believed that Assad and Gül had similar personalities, which would facilitate the improvement of relations between the two countries during Gül’s visit.

The Syrian ambassador noted that during Gül’s visit, the two countries would sign deals on trade and joint projects. Gül, who will be the first Turkish president to visit Aleppo, will attend the opening ceremonies of a number of Turkish hotels in Syria.

…

In less than a year, with quantum speed, and to the great satisfaction of its US-NATO masters, Turkey made its 180 degree turn. The following paragraphs from Turkish Newspaper Hurriyet in November of this year provide a good summary of this new status-stand:

Jeffrey Feltman, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, during his testimony on Syria at the U.S. Senate this week, summarized Turkey’s contribution to the events in Syria in three points: Sheltering refugees, opening up a space for Syrian oppositions to organize and imposing arms embargo on the Syrian regime. Luke Bronin, deputy assistant secretary at Department of Treasury, at the same panel, stated,”it is hard to overstate Turkey’s break with Syria.” Both officials compared Ankara’s close relations with Damascus only a year ago with today and appeared as if they were explaining a miracle taking place and they are certainly not alone.

…

One senior official from Ankara this week gave detailed account about how Turkey’s Syrian policy evolved over the summer. According to this official, “pursuing realist policy to protect our economic interests in Syria was one of the options. But we quickly brushed aside this option as we thought such policy only give more room to Assad to increase his pressure, possibly kill or torture many more people. In such a turn of events, we might have ended up facing with 300 to 500 thousand people in our borders as refugees.”

…

US-NATO’s assigned new role and position for Turkey is clearly stated in these excerpts:

Feltman said when we look at how far we came in recent weeks with regard to Syria, “I can basically say Assad is finished.” Feltman, for the first time, publicly mentioned there is the idea floating around of organizing an international contact group for Syria, one similarly and successfully done in the Libya case.

Turkey must lead such international gatherings to accelerate the transition in Syria. All indications show we are getting closer by day to that point and this time Turkey cannot excuse itself from leading.

…

Only yesterday there came headlines which read: Pentagon Appoints Turkey to Police Iraq & Confront Iran.

The U.S. secretary of defense is visiting NATO ally Turkey. He arrived in the Turkish capital, Ankara, after attending a withdrawal ceremony Thursday in Bagdad of American troops all of whom are due to leave by the end of the month. With the U.S. withdrawal, Turkey is now being seen by Washington as playing a potential key role in Iraq.

The NATO allies are already increasingly cooperating in the region. Last month, the U.S. transferred drones from Iraq to the Turkish airbase of Incirlik close to the Iraqi border.

…

“I suppose many more drones, flying over Iraq in order to continue to monitoring things,” said Ozel. “And I guess they want Incirlik to be open, more open, to American use as well. Politically, they would want Turkey to make sure that things never get of hand between Kurds and Arabs. And in [a] way maintaining the autonomy or viability of the Kurdistan regional government territory.” The semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdish region, which borders Turkey, is, according to observers, strategically important to Washington.

Diplomatic columnist Semih Idiz for the Turkish daily Milliyet says Ankara shares Washington’s concerns about growing Iranian influence in Iraq. “The increase of the Iranian through Shia elements in Iraq, that is what Turkey will be worried about,” added Idiz. “And with Turkey there is a political competition going on for influence between Iran and Turkey.”

…

The Erdogan-Gul government may excel in public performances, such as tough-talk on Israel solely put on to appease their constituents while doing business as usual behind the scenes. They may be good at appearing as committed Muslim men serving their Muslim nation on behalf of their people. But when it comes to action and real servitude, they are not able to hide their real masters; those who come first-before Islam or maybe even Allah. They are and have been accessory to murders, and murders to be committed per order of their US-NATO masters in the game of Muslims killing Muslims. And that my friend is anything but moderately Islamic in the real sense.

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I am not sure if they will publish the full interview session; maybe later. However, the following clip is on Russia’s new draft resolution on Syria with a few highlights from my interview with RT:

Update: Here is the full length interview:

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It’s now been exactly 24 days since I reportedon the ongoing joint US-NATO secret training camp in the USAir Force base in Incirlik, Turkey, which began operations in April- May 2011 to organize and expand the dissident base in Syria. I broke that story on November 21, here at Boiling Frogs Post, based on information provided to me by multiple sources including highly credible insiders in Turkey and government insiders here in the US. 18 days later Iranian Press TV ran the story with further confirmation based on intensive coverage and confirmation by the Turkish media. Impressively, despite far more serious pressure from the government, reporters in Turkey provided detailed coverage of the story I broke here in the US.

One extensively reported story had to do with BBC reporter John Simpson, who went to Turkey to follow up on the story we broke at Boiling Frogs Post, but was placed under surveillance, prevented from following up on the story of the US-NATO-Turkish-Syrian Rebel operation Center in Southern Turkey, stopped from interviewing Riad al Assad, and how BBC quickly excused the scandalous incident. Every major newspaper in Turkey covered this event. Sabah and Radikal were among dozens of TV and newspaper outlets in Turkey covering it.

Here is the spin placed on the story by BBC to make the incident look like ‘protecting Colonel Riad al Assad’ [All Emphasis Mine]:

The colonel’s name sounds close to but not quite the same as that of the President he wants to overthrow, Bashar al-Assad.He is based in a refugee camp at Apaydin, 9 miles (14km) from the town of Antakya and very close to the Syrian border. But he is not allowed to leave the camp, and cannot receive visitors.

To a considerable extent, this is for his own protection. The Turks seem to regard Colonel Asad as a potentially important figure for the future, and are determined that nothing untoward should happen to him.

As a result, getting to see Colonel Asad is remarkably difficult. No Turkish official wanted to help us, or indeed even speak about him on the record.

As we were filming his camp from a distance a group of Turkish soldiers briefly detained us. Yet the colonel is predictably keen to talk, and in the end we interviewed him via the internet.

…

To recap, 24 days ago Boiling Frogs Post broke the story on the US-NATO-Syrian Rebel Operation-Command Center in the US Air Base in Southern Turkey operating since May 2011. This story was first provided to all major US media, think NY Times, Washington Post, but no one was allowed to report due to ‘US government pressure.’ After we broke the story here at BFP, the Turkish media dared their government-military, and provided further confirmation and details. The story has since received coverage and confirmation by foreign publications such as Press TV and Russia TV. Still, not a peep in the US media, and that includes the corporate-foundation backed phony, aka Alternative Media.

Russia TV had good coverage on the latest here. And here is a Russia TV interview with James Corbett from Today:

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For the past few months on a daily basis we have been forced to read, watch and listen to the awful deeds of select dictators here and there, but not everywhere. Our war-drummer TV networks suddenly found an atrocious dictator in Libya, and at lightning speed lined up victim after victim of this long-ruling but suddenly popular dictator called Gaddafi. Remember this CNN episode? Yes I am sure you do. How could anyone erase these horrifying images from memory? Our public was far too horrified and disgusted to stop and wonder why now; why so suddenly. No. For years while our government and corporate partners supplied this dictator with an expansive array of deadly war and police tools, while they basked in the profit’s glow, no one in our media showed the slightest interest in or desire for widely and readily available atrocity documents, victims and witnesses. They waited until their government-corporate masters gave them the expedited green light for manic-continuous coverage. Oh how the majority longed for and anticipated our government’s regime change there…How they clamored for the barbaric ridding of this ruthless evil dictator. One down. A few more to go. Only here and there. Certainly not everywhere.

In recent months we have been presented daily, perhaps more accurately, hourly, with another dictator’s atrocious deeds. Every hour seems to be ‘the Syria Hour’ in our media. Oh, those poor freedom fighters falling one after another…The innocent people up against the heavily armed ferocious army…The daily massacres …all televised, intensely written about, loudly talked about; everywhere. That evil Bashar Assad and his regime. That evil dictator…

Granted on and off we’ve been hearing about the Assad regime’s evilness and its status on our decade-ago designated axis of evil list. But now, well now it is a different deal. Out of the blue, suddenly, this regime and its deeds have become the center of our focus, and it has been forced into our living rooms, newspaper baskets, and car radios; on an hourly basis. Oh how our people’s hearts are bleeding for those freedom-seeking revolutionary rebels…How we despise this stinky mean dictator … We can’t wait to see the bastard taken out and beheaded; preferably live on TV.

Now, here is what you won’t be hearing from our corporate-government-owned mainstream and corporate-foundation-owned pseudo alternative media. Up until very recently, as recent as two years ago, our government, our military and intelligence agencies worked hand-in-hand with this dictator and his regime. After 9/11 this dictator and his regime became one of our top choices for outsourcing our illegal torture and detention practices. In fact, our government always coordinated its bashing and name-calling of this dictator directly with him to help him boost his public standing and popularity in Syria. You see, there are ways to support dictator regimes, and then there are other ways. In ‘certain’ cases it is strategically beneficial to a dictator, or a military regime, or a kingdom, to be outwardly bashed and be cosmetically antagonized by ‘certain’ superpowers, or Israel. Those cosmetically issued bashing-threats go a long way towards improving a dictator’s popularity at home. You know what I’m talking about, right? Think the Saudi Kingdom and Israel. The Kingdom, while best friend and partner with Israel, prefers to be shown and known as Anti-Israel. It is a matter of survival … for ‘certain’ dictators. Now back to Syria.

During my work at the FBI after the September 11 Terrorist Attacks, I worked in a very large unit-room with more than 250 translators and analysts; with no individual rooms or even cubicles separating us. I worked with those from the Saudi Arabia desk, Iran Desk, Israel Desk, Turkey Desk …and of course the Syria Desk. And I can tell you with one hundred percent factual certainty that we, the United States Government and its Intelligence Agencies and its Pentagon and State Department, worked very ‘cozily’ with Syria’s military-intelligence regime. This same dictator we see exposed and bashed by our government and its tentacles- media, readily gave us everything we wanted, and more, and in return, we gave him ‘certain’ things he wanted from us; including outwardly expressed condemnation and evil name-calling.

I also want to remind you of our close partnership with the Syria regime in implementing illegal torture and detention practices. You see this same dictator’s torture practices that are being advertised as intolerable and war-worthy, were exactly the practices our government valued, appreciated, and cherished. Let me give you an example, a well-known documented example, that is [All Emphasis Mine]:

Maher Arar is a telecommunications engineer with dual Syrian and Canadian citizenship who resides in Canada. Arar’s story is frequently referred to as “extraordinary rendition” but the U.S. government insisted it was a case of deportation. Arar was detained during a layover at JFK in September 2002 on his way home to Canada. He was held without charges in solitary confinement in the US for nearly two weeks, questioned, and denied meaningful access to a lawyer.

The US government suspected him of being a member of Al Qaeda and deported him, not to Canada, his current home, but to his native Syria, even though its government is known to use torture. He was detained in Syria for almost a year, during which time he was tortured, according to the findings of a commission of inquiry ordered by the Canadian government, until his release to Canada. That commission publicly cleared Arar of any links to terrorism. The Syrian government now says that Arar is “completely innocent.”

…

Despite the recent public rhetoric, at the time of Arar’s deportation, Syria was working closely with the United States government in their “War on Terror“. In November 2003, Cofer Black, then counterterrorism coordinator at the US State Department and former director of counterterrorism at the CIA, was quoted as saying “The Syrian government has provided some very useful assistance on al Qaeda in the past.” In September 2002, George Bush opposed the enactment of the “Syria Accountability Act” citing effectiveness of current sanctions and the ongoing diplomacy in the region. In addition, the administration noted the cooperation and support by Syria in fighting al-Qaida as a reason for its opposition to the “Syria Accountability Act”.

…

The Syrian government shared the results of its investigation with the United States. Arar believes that his torturers were given a dossier of specific questions by United States interrogators, noting that he was asked identical questions both in the United States and in Syria.

Allow me to recap here: The Syrian regime was the regime of choice for the US government when it came to rendition and torture practices. Arar was not the only US detainee sent, handed-over to Syria; others did not have the benefit of second western citizenship privileges. This was not about looking the other way. It was the US government’s tacit approval of the Syrian regime’s dictatorial torture practices. The US and the Syria regime worked very closely and shared intelligence-police-military information with each other.

The US media has conveniently forgotten all about our government’s approval and support of the Assad regime’s dictatorial and torture practices, and its partnership with this same regime in its dark and illegal operations.  Our media seem to have gone into their highly characteristic amnesiac mode. They don’t want people to know about the past. In fact, they don’t want people to know about the present either. For instance, they have been hard at work trying to twist and falsify the US government’s position and role in the recent uprising in Syria. Based on the fictional concoction they’ve been pouring out, Americans are under the false impression that we began our support for these rebels after the uprising, and as a reaction to the Assad regime’s retaliation against these freedom seekers. When in fact we started our operation last April-May, and actually manufactured-created this highly-coordinated and managed uprising and violence.  You can read my internationally reported coverage on this here, and stay tuned for more detailed coverage on Syria here at Boiling Frogs Post.

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Zambada Niebla, son of one of the leaders of the Sinaloa “Cartel,” arguably the most powerful international narco-trafficking organization on the planet, argues in his criminal case, now pending in federal court in Chicago, that he and the leadership of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug-trafficking organization, were, in effect, working for the U.S. government for years by providing US agents with intelligence about rival drug organizations.

In exchange for that cooperation, Zambada Niebla contends, the US government granted the leadership of the Sinaloa “Cartel” immunity from prosecution for their criminal activities — including the narco-trafficking charges he now faces in Chicago.

The government, in court pleadings filed last month, denies that claim but at the same time has filed a motion in the case seeking to invoke the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA), a measure designed to assure national security information does not become public during court proceedings.

CIPA, enacted 30 years ago, is designed to keep a lid on public disclosure in criminal cases of classified materials, such as details associated with clandestine FBI or CIA operations. In this case, however, the invocation appears to be for the purpose of covering up a scandalous and shady quid pro quo deal between the US government and a drug cartel. Not only that, the Niebla case also threatens to further expose another US government scandal:

It is important to note again that most of the weapons allowed to cross from the US unimpeded into Mexico by ATF’s Fast and Furious were going to the Sinaloa “Cartel,” according to a report issued in July by Issa and Grassley.

So, given Zambada Niebla’s claim ithat “some of the [Fast and Furious] weapons were deliberately allowed by the FBI and other government representatives to end up in the hands of the Sinaloa “Cartel,” it seems his attorneys may want to pose some serious questions to witnesses suspected of having knowledge of that alleged act, including DEA’s Roberts, as well as the special agent in charge of the FBI’s New Mexico operations, Carol K.O. Lee and the U.S. Attorney for New Mexico, Kenneth J. Gonzales.

Such a prospect can’t be very uplifting for the prosecution in Zambada Niebla’s case and might explain, in part, why there is an effort afoot by the US law-enforcement and intelligence officials to cloak the revelations, the evidence, that might surface in the case under the seal of national security.

Prosecutors on Monday, Oct. 3, filed a motion in federal court in Chicago rebutting the accused Mexican narco-trafficker’s argument that he has been denied access to critical evidence in preparing his defense:

In their pleadings, prosecutors again affirm the government’s position that there was no immunity deal offered to the accused narco-trafficker or to the leadership of the Sinaloa drug-trafficking organization. The pleadings filed by the prosecution do not address directly why the government is seeking to invoke national-security procedures for Zambada Niebla’s case
…

Monday’s filing by prosecutors confirms that Zambada Niebla’s case does raise national security issues that require, according to those prosecutors, that special procedures be established by the court — under a 30-year-old law known as the Classified Information Procedures Act — to assure that classified materials do not become public during the court proceedings.

There seems to be another equally troubling and scandalous angle to this story: the US media’s synchronized and orchestrated black out of this massive scandal, most likely at the behest of the US government:

To date, the US mainstream media has been completely silent on the US government’s effort to invoke CIPA in the Zambada Niebla case; so, kind readers, Narco News is the only authentic news publication providing you with the scoop.

…

Conroy’s final sentence succinctly sums up the reality in the US government’s so-called War on Drugs:

The future of the for-profit prohibition industry and the drug-war pretense that props it up could well depend on assuring that the public remains in the dark…

I am going to add my own little sentence to Conroy’s: …and the US media has been playing its role exceptionally well in this “assurance” project.

I am going to ask our readers to treat this Boiling Frogs Post update as a Code Red Alert for US Media Cover Up, and take the following actions:

1-    Visit Narcosphere and read my solid journalist friend Bill Conroy’s article here.

2-    If you have a website, FB, twitter or similar accounts, post the notice for Conroy’s article, and ask others to do the same.

3-    E-mail this notice and article links to your friends-groups and ask them to do the same.

4-    Go to ‘comments’ section of mainstream media websites, post comments with the link to this story, and put them to shame-although we know they know no shame.

5-    And finally, thank you all for your vigilance.

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 I said I was not going to waste time writing about the Ahmed Wali Karzai assassination story and let the stenographers in our media spread the preapproved nonsense. I wrote my piece and provided you with my own humble two cents, and I was ready to move on:

…on the other hand, once things sour, when those liabilities begin to surpass the asset and the profits, you’ll see the media rush and begin swarming around the no-longer-a-favorite Kingpin. Then comes a short period of silence, and after that Bam: You have an assassinated, murdered, suicide-d, or disappeared Old Kingpin case. Alas; no surprise there since this is how these Kingpins ultimately meet their end- this one ‘supposedly’ by the currently fashionable enemy: the Taliban. I promise you won’t be hearing a single word about this in a few days and forever-The Langley Way.

            …

The entire scenario of a Taliban-Turned confidante bodyguard didn’t sit well with me; way too Langley. When you get a chance read a bit about the assassination of Vietnam’s Diem Brothers, and then you’ll understand what I mean when I say ‘Too Langley.’

Anyhow, this morning I read the following headline: Bodyguard Who Killed Karzai’s Brother Was Trusted CIA Contact :

The bodyguard who assassinated President Hamid Karzai’s brother had been working closely with US Special Forces and the CIA …

Everything made sense up to this point, but then came the following sentences:

…before he was recruited by the Taliban, raising fears over the Islamist movement’s increasingly sophisticated intelligence apparatus which has managed to threaten the inner circles of power in Afghanistan.

…

Utter nonsense; that is, if you start adding 2 and 2 and another 2, and then check the result against the one presented to you by the media. Let’s add up a few twos here:

-We know that Ahmed Wali Karzai was a CIA operative and trusted asset for years.

-We know that the CIA relationship- aka working arrangement soured with Ahmed Wali Karzai around 2008, so he was outed by Langley.

-We know that Ahmed Wali Karzai had a pretty good relationship with a certain group of Taliban figure-heads and was pro dialogue with the Taliban.

-We know that Ahmed Karzai’s bodyguard, Sardar Mohammad, spent years as a CIA trusted asset and US ally.

-We know that Karzai’s Bodyguard was a well-know Taliban Foe and played an important role as a snitch reporting on Taliban and helping with their arrest.

Here is what the above twos add up to:

The known Taliban Foe CIA Asset assassinates former CIA Asset-Operative whose relationship with the CIA had soured, and who had relationships and dialogue with certain Taliban figureheads.

And here is the add up by the media:

The bodyguard turned out of the blue into a Taliban and assassinated former US operative who turned out to be a drug kingpin Ahmed Wali Karzai.

Now it is your turn. Please go ahead and do the math.

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James Bamford joins us to discuss the case of NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake, the government’s overreach in bringing espionage charges against him, and the Obama Administration’s unprecedented level of retaliation against government whistleblowers. He discusses the Obama Administration’s shift from military wars to covert-secret wars, the increased use of the CIA as a war branch, and Obama’s violation of the Presidential War Powers Act. Mr. Bamford talks about the CIA operations in Yemen and the use of cluster bombs there as early as December 2009, the implications of WikiLeaks, the absurdity of Obama’s Nobel Peace Award and his recently given Transparency Award, the ineffectiveness and uselessness of NSA in monitoring Osama Bin-Laden’s activities, the absence of real coverage and analyses in the US Mainstream Media, and more!

James Bamford is one of the country’s leading writers on intelligence and national security issues. His books include “The Puzzle Palace,” “Body of Secrets,” “A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq and the Abuse of America’s Intelligence Agencies,” and most recently “ The Shadow Factory”. Mr. Bamford coproduced NOVA’s “The Spy Factory”, which was based on his latest book. He has written for many magazines, including investigative cover stories for The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post Magazine and The Los Angeles Times Magazine, and is a contributing writer for Rolling Stone. His 2005 Rolling Stone article “The Man Who Sold the War” won a National Magazine Award for reporting. He also spent a decade as the Washington investigative producer for the ABC News program, World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, and taught at the University of California, Berkeley, as a distinguished visiting professor.

Here is our guest James Bamford unplugged!

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There is no point in wasting too many words and space rehashing what every media outlet has been reporting and recounting on the assassination of Afghan Heroin Kingpin Ahmed Wali Karzai. The US media began reporting on the Kingpin, his heroin network and operations, his shady deals and even shadier connections over two years ago. This is how it always goes when the relationship between Kingpins like Karzai starts souring with their masters in Langley:

For years, or actually decades, while the relationships are prosperous and mutually beneficial, these Kingpins are miraculously shielded from the media; here and abroad. No matter how much evidence and legitimate reports from even more legitimate sources come available you can’t get the media to even mention Kingpins like Karzai; that is, when the Langley bosses see that their assets surpass all the negative liabilities. On the other hand, once things sour, when those liabilities begin to surpass the asset and the profits, you’ll see the media rush and begin swarming around the no-longer-a-favorite Kingpin. Then comes a short period of silence, and after that Bam: You have an assassinated, murdered, suicide-d, or disappeared Old Kingpin case. Alas; no surprise there since this is how these Kingpins ultimately meet their end- this one ‘supposedly’ by the currently fashionable enemy: the Taliban. I promise you won’t be hearing a single word about this in a few days and forever-The Langley Way.

That’s right. This is why I am not going to sit here and type away on this particular Kingpin; the Old Kingpin. While the media is busy getting the readers’ and listeners’ and watchers’ attention on the assassination of the Old Kingpin, Langley is busy installing their already groomed and prepared new Kingpin; while  no one is looking. Instead I am busy looking at several likely candidates; the possible new heirs to the Old Kingpin. I have a fairly short but fairly solid list. Today I’ll provide you with one from that list, in an attempt to get you to look at a possible new Kingpin the Media-Langley duo doesn’t want you to be looking at.

Langley’s “Chubby” Protégé: Hamed Wardak

About two years ago while no one was really looking at the people Langley didn’t want them to look at, I wrote a piece called: In the Name of a General, His Son, a Spook & the Godmother of Neocons. Please take some time and read the entire piece (it is fairly long and comprehensive) in order to get the entire picture on this potential Kingpin. Here are a few excerpts from what I wrote on Hamed Wardak:

Once upon a time there was an Afghani general named Abdul Rahim Wardak. He had studied in both US and Egyptian military schools before joining the army in Afghanistan. In the 1980s, a few years after he joined the army, he decided to defect and joined the Mujahideen movement. We don’t know exactly who in the United States gave him the order to defect, because no one is willing to go on record. However, we know very well that due to their fight against the Communist Soviet Union, the Mujahideen were significantly financed, armed, and trained by the CIA, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, along with several other not as significant nations. We also know that back then, when we were supporting, financing, training and cheering for the Mujahideen as ‘freedom fighters,’ those labeled today as terrorist evil-doer radicals, Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban, were viewed and treated as our allies and entourage. 

…

Our General Wardak disappeared from the Afghan scene at the beginning of the civil war in the 1990s. He brought his family to the United States where he settled comfortably with enough wealth from undetermined sources, and he enrolled his son, Hamed, in Georgetown University.

Hamed Wardak, a quite chubby and ambitious young man, arrived at Georgetown University, and by the time he got to his senior level he was taken under the wings of one of his professors as her protégé. That professor was none other than our Jeane Kirkpatrick, the proud Godmother of the Neocons. Our savvy readers will understand that this was not due to chance and Hamed’s stars being all aligned. After all, his General father had done his job well serving Kirkpatrick’s and other Neocons’ foreign policy objectives at all costs in Afghanistan and Pakistan. As mentioned earlier, his General father was flown to the US several times and coached by this crowd to give speeches before the US Congress to obtain funds for their overt and covert operations involving the Saudis, Pakistanis and Taliban. So no, these relationships don’t evaporate and disappear. Wardak and his family were accommodated quite well after they were brought to the US, and the Neocons’ future plans for Afghanistan would have plenty of roles for the Wardak family to fill.

Wardak Junior was a known figure among the radical pro-Taliban sympathizers in Washington DC circles. Here are a few quotes from an excellent piece written on the Wardak(s) and Karzai(s): …

…

The Karzai brothers took a great interest in Wardak Junior, and he enjoyed the benefits of the Karzais’ flashy and high-flying friends. After the September 11 Terror Attacks, the Karzais made Hamed the Vice President of the Afghan-American Chamber of Commerce, which was founded by Mahmood Karzai. As I mentioned briefly in my piece, our Neocon Ex-Congressman Don Ritter happens to be the co-founder of this organization. Hamed was also appointed to an advisor’s post with President Karzai’s first Finance Minister, Ashraf Ghani. No small accomplishment for the barely 30 year old Hamed!

Hamed Wardak’s most productive venture in tapping into the US Defense Sector Pot(s) of Gold began with joining a Washington DC contracting firm, Technologists Inc., founded by Aziz Azimi, who happened to be a very close buddy of Qayum Karzai…

…

Our General Wardak was promoted and taken back to Afghanistan to serve in Karzai’s regime as the Minister of Defense. Was he given citizenship when he was brought back to the US to settle? No one is really talking. Did anyone in Afghanistan question having US citizens in their quasi democratic government posts? No one in the US media is reporting. If you are trusted within the Afghan Diaspora in the DC area you’ll hear hushed comments about Wardak, his corrupt practices, and the rumors, fairly consistent rumors, of his close connections to the poppy world.

Back to Wardak Junior in Washington DC; With his dad now in Afghanistan as the Defense Minister, and with his Karzai partners and friends, he was busy running from one pot of gold to another: …

…

Okay, enough excerpts for a bit of background, but as I mentioned you need to read the entire piece here to get the entire picture. Now let’s get a more up-to-date report on where Hamed Wardak is today and what he’s been doing.

A few months after my coverage of Wardaks-Karzai-Ritter the media began taking  notice of Langley’s “Chubby Boy” Hamed Wardak:

A major investigation has been launched into contracts awarded by coalition forces in Afghanistan that are worth hundreds of millions of pounds. The probe into construction and logistics contracts of the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) has been ordered by Major General Nick Carter, commander of Isaf forces in the south of the country.

Members of prominent Afghan families, including Hashmat and Ahmed Wali Karzai, brothers of President Karzai, and Hamed Wardak, the son of the Defence Minister, Rahim Wardak, are among those accused of controlling private security firms benefiting from lucrative security contracts by paying off the Taliban.

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Then, in August 2010 the news of Hamed Wardak being arrested by the FBI came out, but where? Not in the US media. Not a peep. The news of the FBI raid resulting in the arrest of Langley’s Chubby Wardak and other Afghan operators only made it into a few foreign publications and in very small print:

Hamed Wardak, son of Afghan Defense Minister and the owner of NCL international company, has been detained in America. Also arrested in the US are Asaadullah Ramin, brother of a former Cabinet minister, and a brother of Hamidullah Farooqi, former Transport Minister.

…

Again, Chubby Wardak’s quiet release also didn’t make it into the US media. According to Langley former insiders: ‘FBI had to back off once the Langley men stepped in to rescue their very own boy.’

More recently a far more detailed profile of Hamed Wardak emerged in DC Guest of a Guest, and thankfully I had copied the content before it started disappearing and reappearing in the net archives:

While Mr. Wardak is in fact a refugee from Afghanistan, having come to the United States at age three, he is also profiting from the War in Afghanistan, now in its 10th year, to the tune of almost half a billion dollars, according to the Washington Post. In addition, he is connected to lobbying efforts (spearheaded by Patton Boggs, LLC – a sponsor of Wednesday’s event) to keep the United States involved in the Afghanistan conflict, according to The Nation.

… 

Guess where this “Chubby Billionaire’s” office for his billions of dollars operations is located? Right; in McLean Virginia, literally a few blocks from his Langley Operators:

Though Washington Life magazine, another sponsor of Wednesday night’s “Blue Key: Miami to DC“ event, called Wardak a “philanthropist,” the magazine makes no mention (and neither did Wardak) of his McLean-based “transportation company” that scored up to $360 million in defense contracts for safe transportation for U.S. trucks and convoys in Afghanistan. ..Wardak is profiled as a man of many connections, possibly to the Taliban and corrupt Afghan officials, and mysterious spending and accounting. Wardak’s money comes from a transportation company that, according to the Washington Post, is based in “a bare bones office” in McLean, VA “with no trucks.”

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As with many Kingpins, “chubby” Wardak too appears to follow the ‘Front Businesses’ and ‘Glitzy Miami Circle’ trend:

Mired in scandal, Wardak would seemingly like for everyone to associate his name with Ludus Athletics, a new clothing company he founded recently in Miami. At this time, the Ludus Athletics Web site is merely a full-page advertisement for Wednesday’s event. He would also seemingly like for you to associate his name with peace efforts between the United States and Afghanistan. According to HamedWardak.com, in which he bills himself as CEO of Ludus Athletics (again, failing to mention NCL Holdings), Wardak says that he “plays an active role in the US-Afghanistan relations.

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You know how the Hollywood movies depict kingpin types, usually those from Columbia: Big Miami homes and parties with go-go dancers entertaining the rich powerful ugly old men?  Now read this from a party thrown by Chubby Wardak at a hot DC club:

Dignitaries such as Zalmay Khalilzad, former US Ambassador to the United Nations, and Washington’s elite and social set nevertheless turned out on Wednesday to see the POV at the W Hotel “turned into an an ultrachic Miami lounge,” as the event invitation promised. It was rumored that Ludus imported young Miami women up the East Coast to the Nation’s capital to dance scantily-clad in new Ludus Athletic wear, while Miami’s “top DJ’s” helped Ludus and other sponsors to convert the POV at the W hotel “for the night into the hottest club in DC.” Other attendees and VIPs listed on the event press release include Qubad Talabany, son of President Jalal Talabany of Iraq, and Roman Popadiuk, US Ambassador to Ukraine. There were also assorted Ultimate Fighting Championship celebrities in attendance.

…

Of course even the savviest journalists wouldn’t have been able to discern the Langley guys among the big crowd, but trust me many of them were present according to my retired but active Langley source.

I guess you now understand why I don’t bother covering Ahmed Wali Karzai, the Old Kingpin that proved to exceed in liabilities for the CIA over assets. Instead I’ve been busy looking into identifying and following the current Kingpin(s), the valuable assets bringing high-value profits for our Langley. The Old Kingpin is dead, but not the operations, profits, and Langley’s new Kingpin(s) already hard at work while completely shielded from the media’s long-ceased-to-exist probing eyes.

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Tomorrow morning we’ll publish our interview with Paul Craig Roberts. We had a sobering interview session on the rise of the police state, the US media’s role in ever-declining liberties, the never-investigated September 11 terrorist attacks, and more. While we are waiting for the interview I want to share with you a few excerpts from a collection of great articles written by Mr. Roberts, starting with his powerful piece on the US mainstream media published in 2010, Truth Has Fallen and Taken Liberty With it:

There was a time when the pen was mightier than the sword. That was a time when people believed in truth and regarded truth as an independent power and not as an auxiliary for government, class, race, ideological, personal, or financial interest.

Today Americans are ruled by propaganda. Americans have little regard for truth, little access to it, and little ability to recognize it.

Truth is an unwelcome entity. It is disturbing. It is off limits. Those who speak it run the risk of being branded “anti-American,” “anti-Semite” or “conspiracy theorist.”

Truth is an inconvenience for government and for the interest groups whose campaign contributions control government.

Truth is an inconvenience for prosecutors who want convictions, not the discovery of innocence or guilt.

…

Americans, or most of them, have proved to be putty in the hands of the police state.

Americans have bought into the government’s claim that security requires the suspension of civil liberties and accountable government. Astonishingly, Americans, or most of them, believe that civil liberties, such as habeas corpus and due process, protect “terrorists,” and not themselves. Many also believe that the Constitution is a tired old document that prevents government from exercising the kind of police state powers necessary to keep Americans safe and free.

Most Americans are unlikely to hear from anyone who would tell them any different.

…

The American corporate media does not serve the truth. It serves the government and the interest groups that empower the government.

America’s fate was sealed when the public and the anti-war movement bought the government’s 9/11 conspiracy theory. The government’s account of 9/11 is contradicted by much evidence. Nevertheless, this defining event of our time, which has launched the US on interminable wars of aggression and a domestic police state, is a taboo topic for investigation in the media. It is pointless to complain of war and a police state when one accepts the premise upon which they are based.

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Okay, I don’t want to abuse my direct quotes quota right. Please go and read the entire article here.

The following excerpts are from Mr. Robert’s article, It Is Official: The US Is a Police State:

“Violent extremism” is one of those undefined police state terms that will mean whatever the government wants it to mean. In this morning’s FBI’s foray into the homes of American citizens of conscience, it means antiwar activists, whose activities are equated with “the material support of terrorism,” just as conservatives equated Vietnam era anti-war protesters with giving material support to communism.

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An American Police State was inevitable once Americans let “their” government get away with 9/11. Americans are too gullible & too uneducated to remain a free people. As another Nazi leader Herman Goering said, “The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. Tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peace-makers for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger.”
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And here are a couple of quotes from his latest piece Hail Caesar published at LWR:

However, regardless of whether the debt ceiling is raised, the US government is not going to go out of business. Why does anyone think that the President, who does not obey the War Powers Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, US and international laws against torture, or any of the laws and procedures that guard civil liberty, is going to feel compelled to obey the debt ceiling?

As long as the US is at war, the American President is a Caesar. He is above the law. The US Justice (sic) Department has ruled this, and Congress and the Courts have accepted it.

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If the President can declare on his own authority, without statutory basis and in defiance of the US Constitution, that he can assassinate US citizens who he considers to be a threat to national security, he certainly can declare that default is a threat to national security and that it is within his powers as commander-in-chief to ignore the debt ceiling.

Indeed, the executive branch would jump at the chance. Then it could reshape the budget to its own pleasing without having to consult Congress on spending any more than the executive branch consults Congress on war.

The Bush/Cheney regime brought democracy and accountable government to an end. If Obama doesn’t finish the process, the next in line will.

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Please stay tuned for our interview with Paul Craig Roberts tomorrow!

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They say don’t count your chickens before they hatch. I say this doesn’t apply to the US political hatching machine, since there are more than chickens at stake. I’ll go even further and say we must start counting the eggs regardless of how many ultimately hatch. The cycle of laying eggs to hatched chickens is way too long in US political machinations hard at work towards the new world order. If one wants to keep up and be aware, one must pay close attention to the incubators and each entering egg. The Obama administration’s Bin Laden Death Script is the new designated incubator for a special batch of eggs. No matter how many will actually hatch. No matter how many will turn into specially designed future egg-laying chickens. What matters is the ultimate objective in engineering this latest designed political incubator. What matters is the path or paths set to follow the machine’s chicken delivery conveyor belts that will extend and wrap the globe, and deliver the new order.

We have had a few chickens hatch immediately following the death script; the early chicks. After the Osama Death Script release Obama’s job approval ratings jumped 11 percentage points to 57 percent according to a New York Times poll, and 9 percentage points according to a Washington Post-Pew Research Center poll. The Osama Death Script also brought a reversal in months of rising opposition to the war, when polls showed that record-low levels of Americans thought the war had  been worth it in the long run. Also, a slim majority of Americans now say things are going well for the United States in Afghanistan, a four-percentage-point increase from late March. This marks the first time in nearly two years that the majority has held this view, and only the second time since Gallup began tracking these opinions on the war in 2006.

Pakistan appears to be the batch about to hatch. I am going to reiterate what I wrote in my article, Bin Laden Death Script & the Needed Trigger for Next Step-Pakistan, neither party-US-China-Pakistan, has played all their cards yet:

The White House neocons are in the midst of age-old diplomatic games, bluffing, and hedging their bets. They have the ‘foreign & military aid’ card. They have the ‘ISI dirt files’ card. They have the ‘ultimate China leaning’ card. And of course, they have the ‘mighty power of preemptive occupation war’ card which is always blessed and supported by NATO and overlooked by their butlers in the UN.

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Sometimes we come across an odd egg or two standing out like a giant Ostrich egg among tiny chicken eggs; like the following strange case popping up with even stranger timing; could it be an egg from the Iran Batch? :

Two defectors from Iran’s intelligence service have testified that Iranian officials had “foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks,” according to a court filing Thursday in a federal lawsuit in Manhattan that seeks damages for Iran’s “direct support for, and sponsorship of, the most deadly act of terrorism in American history.”

Interestingly, despite all the contradictory, hole-filled and ever-changing Osama Death Script, and with so many eggs in the hatchery, we haven’t had any serious ‘Egg on the face’ case. One of the biggest reasons this hatchery-incubator had remained in a designed stage so long, until coming into the implementation stage recently, was the fear of losing a chicken or two that had been hatched from the 9/11 incubator. It was the question of what if the ‘Osama Death Script’ backfires and ends the motivation-reasons behind the many wars abroad and many newly gained government police powers here in the United States? It was the uncertainty as to whether we could continue this ‘Al-Qaeda Fear Brand’ and ‘war on terror’ without a healthy-wealthy and very alive Osama Man. The outcome, so far, has proved those fears baseless:

  Thanks to the real powers’ PR and propaganda machine, Al-Qaeda and the virtual terror machine have been deemed independent of Osama Bin Laden, and able to sustain, expand and grow ever increasingly and ever more powerful. The Bin Laden Chicken has been replaced by McQaeda Franchisees:

They kidnap Westerners in the deserts of Africa, turn Western-born Muslims into radicals, send bombs to the United States from Yemen and mount bloody attacks in Iraq and Pakistan.

These homegrown terror groups worldwide are informally dubbed Al Qaeda franchises – affiliates that do most of their own fundraising, recruiting and killing. The question now is this: What impact will the death of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden have on the ability and willingness of the franchises to mount attacks?

Emails found on flash drives from bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan two weeks ago show that he was communicating more than Western intelligence had thought. But Al Qaeda’s ideology plays a much bigger role in fostering terror than bin Laden’s personal involvement, said Gen. David Richards, Britain’s top military chief.”Yemen, Somalia and other places in the Middle East are today more important in a counter-terror context than what was going on…in Osama’s compound,” Richards told British lawmakers.

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However, Al Qaeda franchises were responsible for the 2008 attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai that killed 166, and the 2002 attacks on a Bali island night club that killed 202 people, many foreign tourists.

The head of Britain’s domestic spy agency MI5, Jonathan Evans, has said it’s only a matter of time before “we see terrorism on our streets” from the Al Qaeda movement in Somalia, known as al-Shabab. He also said it is likely that Al Qaeda supporters in the Arabian Peninsula will step up attacks on Western targets.

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And just to reassure our real hatchery and incubator-designers, a few days ago, after the supposed Bin Laden death, our supposed representatives from both houses and both parties reached a deal on a long-term extension of the PATRIOT Act without any of the inconvenient civil rights provisions and for an additional four years.

As any critical thinking and attention paying reader may already suspect, there were many eggs laid inside the Osama Death Script incubator. Some have already hatched; time will show how many will last long enough and grow into full chickens. Some are about to hatch; follow the news and developments around the world and you’ll see and recognize the chicks as they pop up. Some may take a while to hatch; patience is a virtue, if the only one, our ‘real’ rulers are known to have. And some will never hatch; well, they say no risk no rewards.

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U.S. Government Will Adopt Gold Standard in the Next Five Years, Forbes Predicts

Return to the gold standard by the United States within the next five years now seems likely, since that move would help the nation to solve a variety of economic, fiscal and monetary ills, Steve Forbes predicted during an exclusive interview Monday with Human Events.

The only probable 2012 U.S. presidential candidate who has championed a return to the gold standard so far is Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas. But the idea “makes too much sense” not to gain popularity as the U.S. economy struggles to create jobs, to recover from a housing bubble induced by the Federal Reserve’s easy-money monetary policies, to stop rising gasoline prices and to restore fiscal responsibility to U.S. government’s budget, Forbes explained.

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You can read the rest of this article here, but what really got my attention was the irony. For years, if not decades, the mainstream media has been ridiculing Representative Ron Paul’s reasoned arguments on monetary policy, the pitfalls of fiat money and the urgency of returning to ‘backed money’-the Gold Standard. Even the idea of returning to the Gold Standard has been greeted with a gasp, the life-vest of irrational gangs- the labeling game and name calling, and foaming mouths spitting mockery and or profanity-filled adjectives:

“Soon every citizen will have the right to have their own pot of gold as we convert America to a Leprechauny! Here to advocate for this bright future, please join me in welcoming live via satellite, Congressman Ron Paul…”

Here is Megan McArdle, in 2007, ridiculing Ron Paul’s categorization of certain financial-banking institutions as ‘shadowy’ in defense of the Banking institution:

Fiat money inflation benefits those shadowy figures who receive access to artificially inflated money before the inflationary effects kick in [Ron Paul]. Those shadowy figures being the bankers who loaned it to you so that you could buy your house [Megan McArdle]…

That’s right, and those shadowy figures were also the ones who brought about the massive foreclosures of your houses! McArdle, while foaming at the mouth, called Paul’s categorization of these banking institutions, the shadowy entities, wrong, ridiculous and with few or no support within the mainstream economist colony. Oh boy, only a year later, in a June 2008 speech, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, then President and CEO of the NY Federal Reserve Bank, placed significant blame for the freezing of credit markets on a “run” on the entities in the shadow banking system by their counterparties!

Well, let’s see if the mainstream will be quick to get all over Steve Forbes and many others who have been joining the Gold Standard choir. For years they had a punching bag who remained consistent in his view of the desperate need for turning our sickly monetary policy upside down and considering a return to the Gold Standard. They called it wacky, nutty, a lone wolf howling …you name it. Now I want to see them take on the expanded group of believers in the face of the mess we’ve been sinking in deeper and deeper every day. Will it happen? You tell me.

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Grant F. Smith joins us to discuss Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle, a 2009 Council on Foreign Relations book authored by Dan Senor and Saul Singer. He tells us about rarely discussed “massive non-market subsidies and distortions” designed and implemented to benefit Israel, such as an agreement with the Pentagon for Israel to provide goods and services to the US military, and gain access to the US military procurement system, and other congressionally approved agreements that create jobs in Israel rather than in the US. Mr. Smith talks about AIPAC, Israel’s vast network of legal and illegal campaign contributions, their influence and propaganda infrastructure with the US media, and more!

Grant F. Smith is director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington, D.C. He is the author of Spy Trade: How Israel’s Lobby Undermines America’s Economy, America’s Defense Line: The Justice Department’s Battle to Register the Israel Lobby as Agents of a Foreign Government and Foreign Agents: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee from the 1963 Fulbright Hearings to the 2005 Espionage Scandal. He is a contributor to Radio France Internationale and Voice of America’s Foro Interamericano, and has appeared on BBC News, CNN, and C-SPAN.

Here is our guest Grant Smith unplugged!

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I am going to stay true to my pledged position on Wikileaks related topics, and stick with questions rather than hasty analyses and interpretations. I’ve been highly puzzled by the recent position of and statements by the New York Times on Wikileaks Gate. I don’t know whether to view this puzzling change of heart and position in light of appropriately seasonal concepts of miracles, seeing the light, and the eighth wonder of the world, or, more realistically cynical interpretations based on their reputation, history and track record. How does a mindset dictating governmentally correct and approved reportage suddenly change into one that sides with transparency and positive journalistic ethics? This is when it is good to have media outlets and investigative journalists who investigate, analyze, and report on other media channels, editors and reporters. Alas, we ain’t got one; at least not one I’ve been able to find, thus, here I am with my list of questions asking you to hop on board and help me come up with possible explanations.

It wasn’t that long ago that the Times’ infamous editor, along with his superiors in the government and inferiors beneath him on the committee, decided to hold the explosive exposé on NSA’s Warrantless Spying Program. The Times held the story not for one day, not for one week, not for one month, but for over a year. It sat on it, and whether easily or with great difficulty, it sealed its every single reporter’s lips. Together, in a unified fashion, they all sat on this earth-shattering revelation. They served their masters, and threw their weight into highly critical elections. When, after it was way too late, their governmentally sanctioned deed, this journalistically unethical scam, was exposed, they didn’t have much if anything to offer as defense:

“After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns,” James Risen and Eric Lichtblau wrote, “the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting.”

…

Troubled by what seemed to be shifting language about the delay — the initial story and a statement issued over Keller’s name said the paper had held the story for “a year,” but Keller later seemed to acknowledge implicitly that the delay had been longer — Calame kept asking for details, and Keller has now provided them: Drafts of the article were written weeks before the presidential election, Keller says, and “the climactic discussion about whether to publish was right on the eve of the election.”

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Why was the story held? That’s a little hard to decipher. Keller has said that he can’t get into too much detail without exposing anonymous sources — and that the administration had assured the Times initially that everyone thought the program was legal…Keller also says that there was a matter of fairness involved — a point with which Calame agrees. “Candidates affected by a negative article deserve to have time — several days to a week — to get their response disseminated before voters head to the polls,” Calame says.

…

Okay, as I said it wasn’t that long ago and I’m sure many of you remember the entire saga, one that made very clear the position of the Times, their modus operandi and their true masters. And this is exactly why I was left confused and highly puzzled with the Times’ recent change of heart and 180 degree change in position:

But the more important reason to publish these articles is that the cables tell the unvarnished story of how the government makes its biggest decisions, the decisions that cost the country most heavily in lives and money. ..As daunting as it is to publish such material over official objections, it would be presumptuous to conclude that Americans have no right to know what is being done in their name.

The same Bill Keller, who obeyed the government on censoring the illegal wiretapping of all Americans for over a year, and without any hesitation, had this to say on publishing Wikileaks’ cables:

Look, I absolutely believe that governments have an obligation to keep certain things secret, you know, not just diplomacy — military operations, the codes to the nuclear weapons. I mean, there are lots of things that governments have the right to keep secret. It’s their job to keep it secret. It’s not the press’s job to do that.

Granted, the Times has already admitted to having their to-be-published cables and to-be-covered WikiLeaks issues vetted and blessed by their mighty governmental masters:

U.S. officials submitted suggestions to The Times, which asked government officials to weigh in on some of the documents the newspaper and its partners wanted to publish.

And:

But we were concerned at the Times, and it’s one of the reasons that we went through so carefully to try to redact material that we thought could be damaging to individuals or undercut ongoing operations. And we even took the very unusual step of showing the 100 cables or so that we were writing from to the U.S. government and asking them if they had additional redactions to suggest.

Yet, the questions, remain; at least for me. To what can we attribute this curious and sudden change of heart? After all we are talking about the NY Times of Judith Miller, the cover up of the Downing Street Memo, the year-long burial of NSA wiretapping, and much more. Let’s start with the most innocent possibilities and work our way up from there:

-Is it simply due to the competitive market and nature of the news business? Unlike the NSA illegal wiretapping disclosure, this cache of leaks was given to more than one news outlet in more than one country. Did NY Times find the option of censoring it while international competitors did otherwise too big a pill to swallow?

-Is it because they secured the US government’s ‘vetted, sanctioned and blessed’ stamp? Releasing documents that have been vetted and redacted by the US government can serve several purposes: information management – where people get to read and know what the government wants them to read and know, strategic information warfare – where the government counters and neutralizes the damage caused by the leak by placing their own spin and maintaining direction control…

-Is it brought about by some supernatural or spiritual experience on the part of NY Times decision makers? Maybe some supernatural or mythical power decided to make an appearance before them? Maybe it is a case of a terminal illness bringing the editor (or editors) closer to death, thus, more fearful of potential consequences of their past and present evil deeds (think purgatory and think hell)? Maybe there is such a thing as seeing the light – that it is not limited to some serial killer waiting on death row?

-Is the entire thing an illusion created by the same illusion-makers who have been at work for a long time? The media plays the most important role in the game of illusion-making; think a magician and his set of props, then think the shadow government and its delivery vehicle…and then, think US media.

I’m sure I’m missing several other equally or even more significant questions, but then again that’s one of the purposes of posting it on this blog and getting your input. Please chime in, add your questions, and help plug in as many answers as we can.

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Chris Hedges gives us a quick sketch of his latest book “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle”. He discusses the real role of the US media as one of the main culprits in promoting a sense of exceptionalism by disseminating fantasy, and poisoning civil and political discourse with entertainment and trivia. He talks about the spectacle surrounding Barrack Obama’s presidential campaign and his function as a brand just like any other commercial commodity brand advertised and promoted by corporations, the last decade’s coup d’état in slow motion, and much more!

Chris Hedges is a senior fellow at the Nation Institute and the Anschutz Distinguished Fellow at Princeton University. He has written nine books, including Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle, and the best-selling American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. He spent two decades as a foreign reporter covering wars in Latin America, Africa, Europe and the Middle East, and served for eight years as the Middle East bureau chief of The New York Times, where he shared the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism, for coverage of terrorism. Hedges also received the 2002 Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism. His weekly column is published on Truthdig

Here is our guest Chris Hedges unplugged!

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.

Last Friday as I was searching the headlines for noteworthy and interesting news articles I came across a fairly lengthy and detailed story on Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi. Considering the saturated state of this recent CIA slaying story and the reporting source, I almost skipped the article, but then, something caught my eye; something easy to miss with the naked eye, at least those of gullible US Media readers-believers. It wasn’t the story itself, nor was it the flowery details in an attempt to make it a possible future ‘Hollywood Action Drama’ worthy of a six figure movie rights offer. It also wasn’t due to the authors, since neither one of them was familiar to me. No, it was none of that. What caught my attention and held it there for the next few hours was the very calculative and selective usage of a word in the title; Victim:

“In Afghanistan attack, CIA fell victim to series of miscalculations about informant”

With that word, victim, in mind, I quickly checked a few other media sites, and sure enough the word was there. I will give you a couple of quick examples, starting with NY Daily News:

Among the CIA victims, including several contractors, was a mother of three who directed operations and intelligence gathering at Forward Operating Base Chapman, a secretive site in Khowst province on the Pakistan border that also houses a State Department reconstruction team.

An eighth American victim was a State Department worker. An Afghan also was killed in the attack and six other Americans were wounded.

…

And the next excerpt from the so-called lefty PBS:

Families of some of the CIA victims have released information about their lives. Harold Brown Jr., 37, from Massachusetts, had a wife and three children; Jeremy Wise, 35, was a former Navy SEAL and worked as a security contractor; Scott Michael Roberson, 39, worked as a security officer and had a wife who was eight months pregnant; and Dane Clak Paresi, 46, was a contractor and retired soldier.

…

First, let’s get the very simple facts straight here:

These were not some CIA paper pushers in some office building overseas, nor were they the stereotyped useless undercover social butterflies hanging out in embassies’ cocktail parties. These were the other breed: Combatants in the so-called war zone, actually in the heart of the combat zone, engaged in combat involving the deadliest of attacks using unmanned drones. As for the other two Blackwater contractors, I don’t have to tell you what they do. Do I?

With our military guys who get killed in wars, this same media reports using words such as combat casualties, killed, slain… Please be my guest and comb through the unfortunately plentiful reports on US military casualties. In fact here is the straight forward definition of casualty by the military:

A casualty is a member of personnel unable to fulfill their duties within a military organization due to death or incapacitation by injury or illness.

And here is how it is defined by encyclopedia

A hostile casualty is any person who is killed in action or wounded by any civilian, paramilitary, terrorist, or military force that may or may not represent a nation or state. Also included in this classification are persons killed or wounded accidentally either by friendly fire or by fratricide, which occurs when troops are mistakenly thought to be an enemy force.

As for general usage of Victims of War, this is what usually is meant:

…to those who may be described as the victims of war-that is, noncombatant civilians and those no longer able to take part in hostilities.

I know what you are thinking; kind of. Why split hairs over some terminology usage that may or may not have been calculated, selected, and then given to the public by the media.  And, that’s exactly why I ended up spending several hours researching after coming across that article by the Washington Post.

I spent a few hours combing through the Washington Post archives. I am sure I wasn’t able to check hundreds of their semi-fiction reportage, but I’d say dozens of articles should suffice to establish selective usage of the word victim when it hardly applies, and never using the word where it would be 100% correct and applicable.

Wouldn’t you, or almost anyone, even those with only a minute trace of comprehension-knowledge-brain-common sense, consider the civilian casualties, when it’s comprised of babies, toddlers, grandmothers, as victims of war? As victims? Every dictionary, encyclopedia, and everyone with certified expertise in the English language, would say ‘YES.’

Then how is it that when reporting on established, 100% confirmed, civilian casualties of US combat attacks that include innocent children, this same Washington Post does not use the word victim; not even once? Not in relation to the family members of those children and mothers killed; as in “…the uncle of one of the victims…’ or something like ‘these children fell victim to inaccurate…’ I could go on and list dozens of links from past articles on major heart wrenching civilian casualties of our senseless and perpetual war(s), and show you the absence of the word victim in all. Or you can easily do that yourself: visit Washington Post, enter the key words ‘Afghanistan civilian casualties war’ in the box, click on search, comb through tens if not hundreds of resultant articles on civilian casualties of our war, and look for the word ‘victim.’

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Mark Klein provides us with his personal account of the illegal spying apparatus installed at AT&T by the National Security Agency and his battle as a whistleblower to bring it to light. He talks about the difficulties in getting a reluctant media to report the story, the incredible betrayal by the L.A. Times, his role as a witness in a lawsuit brought against AT&T by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the alarming state of our civil liberties today, the need for vigilant activism, and more.

Mark Klein is a former AT&T technician who disclosed knowledge of his company’s cooperation with the United States National Security Agency (NSA) in installing network hardware to monitor and process American telecommunications. The subsequent media coverage became a major story in May 2006. In recognition of his actions, the Electronic Frontier Foundation picked Klein as one of the winners of its 2008 Pioneer Awards. Klein worked for AT&T as a technician for over 22 years, first in New York and then in California, before retiring in 2004. He is the author of Wiring Up The Big Brother Machine And Fighting It.

Here is our guest Mark Klein unplugged!

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.

Russ Baker discusses his book, Family of Secrets, the first complete historic portrait of the Bush dynasty, and provides us with an overview of how this dynasty shaped our politics. He tells us about the shadow government in the US, the real players, elites, and power centers within each president’s government, and the limitation on what and how much an American president can accomplish – considering the influence of these powerful and independent fiefdoms characterized by entrenched agendas and constant intrigue. Mr. Baker defines and explains the concept of Forensic Journalism, and talks about his nonprofit news organization WhoWhatWhy, the need for nonpartisan and independent journalism today, the current media landscape in the US, and more.

Russ Baker is an award-winning investigative journalist and the author of Family of Secrets- – the Bush Dynasty, America’s Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years. He has written for The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The Nation, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Village Voice and Esquire. He has served as a contributing editor to the Columbia Journalism Review, and is the founder of WhoWhatWhy, a nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative news organization.

Here is our guest Russ Baker unplugged!

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