Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s “Stop Arming Terrorists Act” to curb weapons going to Al Qaeda-linked jihadists in Syria, has attracted only 14 co-sponsors pointing to hypocrisy in the “war on terror,” as Gareth Porter explained at The American Conservative.
By Gareth Porter
June 23, 2017
Three-term Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, a member of both the Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees, has proposed legislation that would prohibit any U.S. assistance to terrorist organizations in Syria as well as to any organization working directly with them. Equally important, it would prohibit U.S. military sales and other forms of military cooperation with other countries that provide arms or financing to those terrorists and their collaborators.
President Barack Obama walks along the Colonnade at the White House with then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, Dec. 7, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Gabbard’s “Stop Arming Terrorists Act” challenges for the first time in Congress a U.S. policy toward the conflict in the Syrian civil war that should have set off alarm bells long ago: in 2012-13 the Obama administration helped its Sunni allies Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar provide arms to Syrian and non-Syrian armed groups to force President Bashar al-Assad out of power. And in 2013 the administration began to provide arms to what the CIA judged to be “relatively moderate” anti-Assad groups — meaning they incorporated various degrees of Islamic extremism.
That policy, ostensibly aimed at helping replace the Assad regime with a more democratic alternative, has actually helped build up al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise al Nusra Front into the dominant threat to Assad.
The supporters of this arms-supply policy believe it is necessary as pushback against Iranian influence in Syria. But that argument skirts the real issue raised by the policy’s history. The Obama administration’s Syria policy effectively sold out the U.S. interest that was supposed to be the touchstone of the “Global War on Terrorism” — the eradication of al Qaeda and its terrorist affiliates. The United States has instead subordinated that U.S. interest in counter-terrorism to the interests of its Sunni allies. In doing so it has helped create a new terrorist threat in the heart of the Middle East.
The policy of arming military groups committed to overthrowing the government of President Bashar al-Assad began in September 2011, when President Barack Obama was pressed by his Sunni allies — Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar — to supply heavy weapons to a military opposition to Assad they were determined to establish. Turkey and the Gulf regimes wanted the United States to provide anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons to the rebels, according to a former Obama administration official involved in Middle East issues.
Obama refused to provide arms to the opposition, but he agreed to provide covert U.S. logistical help in carrying out a campaign of military assistance to arm opposition groups. CIA involvement in the arming of anti-Assad forces began with arranging for the shipment of weapons from the stocks of the Gaddafi regime that had been stored in Benghazi.
Shipments from Benghazi
CIA-controlled firms shipped the weapons from the military port of Benghazi to two small ports in Syria using former U.S. military personnel to manage the logistics, as investigative reporter Sy Hersh detailed in 2014. The funding for the program came mainly from the Saudis.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testifies before Congress on Jan. 23, 2013, about the fatal attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11. 2012. (Photo from C-SPAN coverage)
A declassified October 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency report revealed that the shipment in late August 2012 had included 500 sniper rifles, 100 RPG (rocket propelled grenade launchers) along with 300 RPG rounds and 400 howitzers. Each arms shipment encompassed as many as ten shipping containers, it reported, each of which held about 48,000 pounds of cargo.
A new book about Hillary Clinton’s last campaign for president — “Shattered,” by journalists Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes — has gotten a lot of publicity since it appeared two weeks ago. But major media have ignored a revealing passage near the end of the book.
Soon after Clinton’s defeat, top strategists decided where to place the blame. “Within 24 hours of her concession speech,” the authors report, campaign manager Robby Mook and campaign chair John Podesta “assembled her communications team at the Brooklyn headquarters to engineer the case that the election wasn’t entirely on the up-and-up. For a couple of hours, with Shake Shack containers littering the room, they went over the script they would pitch to the press and the public. Already, Russian hacking was the centerpiece of the argument.”
Six months later, that centerpiece of the argument is rampant — with claims often lurching from unsubstantiated overreach to outright demagoguery.
A lavishly-funded example is the “Moscow Project,” a mega-spin effort that surfaced in midwinter as a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. It’s led by Neera Tanden, a self-described “loyal solider” for Clinton who also runs the Center for American Progress (where she succeeded Podesta as president). The Center’s board includes several billionaires.
The “Moscow Project” is expressly inclined to go over the top, aiming to help normalize ultra-partisan conjectures as supposedly factual. And so, the homepage of the “Moscow Project” prominently declares: “Given Trump’s obedience to Vladimir Putin and the deep ties between his advisers and the Kremlin, Russia’s actions are a significant and ongoing cause for concern.”
Let’s freeze-frame how that sentence begins: “Given Trump’s obedience to Vladimir Putin.” It’s a jaw-dropping claim; a preposterous smear.
Echoes of such tactics can be heard from many Democrats in Congress and from allied media. Along the way, no outlet has been more in sync than MSNBC, and no one on the network has been more promotional of the Russia-runs-Trump meme than Rachel Maddow, tirelessly promoting the line and sometimes connecting dots in Glenn Beck fashion to the point of journalistic malpractice.
Yet last year, notably without success, the Clinton campaign devoted plenty of its messaging to the Trump-Russia theme. As the “Shattered” book notes, “Hillary would raise the issue herself repeatedly in debates” with Trump. For example, in one of those debates she said: “We have 17 — 17 — intelligence agencies, civilian and military, who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyber attacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin and they are designed to influence our election.”
After Trump’s election triumph, the top tier of Clinton strategists quickly moved to seize as much of the narrative as they could, surely mindful of what George Orwell observed: “Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.” After all, they hardly wanted the public discourse to dwell on Clinton’s lack of voter appeal because of her deep ties to Wall Street. Political recriminations would be much better focused on the Russian government.
In early spring, the former communications director of the 2016 Clinton presidential campaign, Jennifer Palmieri, summed up the post-election approach neatly in a Washington Post opinion article: “If we make plain that what Russia has done is nothing less than an attack on our republic, the public will be with us. And the more we talk about it, the more they’ll be with us.”
The inability of top Clinton operatives to identify with the non-wealthy is so tenacious that they still want to assume “the public will be with us” the more they talk about Russia Russia Russia. Imagine sitting at a kitchen table with average-income voters who are worried sick about their financial futures — and explaining to them that the biggest threat they face is from the Kremlin rather than from U.S. government policies that benefit the rich and corporate America at their expense.
Tone deaf hardly describes the severe political impairment of those who insist that denouncing Russia will be key to the Democratic Party’s political fortunes in 2018 and 2020. But the top-down pressure for conformity among elected Democrats is enormous and effective.
One of the most promising progressives to arrive in Congress this year, Rep. Jamie Raskin from the Maryland suburbs of D.C., promptly drank what might be called the “Klinton Kremlin Kool-Aid.” His official website features an article about a town-hall meeting that quotes him describing Trump as a “hoax perpetrated by the Russians on the United States of America.”
Like hundreds of other Democrats on Capitol Hill, Raskin is on message with talking points from the party leadership. That came across in an email that he recently sent to supporters for a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee fundraiser. It said:
“We pull the curtain back further each day on the Russian Connection, forcing National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to resign, Attorney General Sessions to recuse, and America to reflect on who’s calling the shots in Washington.”
You might think that Wall Street, big banks, hugely funded lobbyists, fat-check campaign contributors, the fossil fuel industry, insurance companies, military contractors and the like are calling the shots in Washington. Maybe you didn’t get the memo.
Norman Solomon is the coordinator of the online activist group RootsAction.org and the executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He is the author of a dozen books including “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.”
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
Some of the anti-Trump protests in the US have been organized by groups that were sponsored by Clinton sympathizer and billionaire George Soros.
Among Wikileaks’ Podesta emails was a strategy document involving the Soros-supported MoveOn.org and grassroots organizing and funding.
MoveOn.org issued a press release on Wednesday afternoon about the protests where they wrote “hundreds of Americans, dozens of organizations to gather peacefully outside the White House and in cities and towns nationwide to take a continued stand against misogyny, racism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia.”
“Tonight, thousands of Americans will come together at hundreds of peaceful gatherings in cities and towns across the nation, including outside the White House, following the results of Tuesday’s presidential election.”
“The gatherings—organized by MoveOn.org and allies—will affirm a continued rejection of Donald Trump’s bigotry, xenophobia, Islamophobia, and misogyny and demonstrate our resolve to fight together for the America we still believe is possible,” the statement continued.
“Those that are stirring it up, and many of them do work for Soros-fronted organizations are really telling those innocent protesters, and perhaps less innocent protesters, they are in danger by Trump, even though Trump has done nothing but preach unity since he won the election,” Marko Gasic, a British-Serbian political commentator told RT on Friday.
The global elite’s objections to in President-elect Donald Trump is perhaps different from what they are telling protesters, Gasic said.
“It’s an election where they had all of the media, power and money and yet they’ve lost to him,” said Gasic. “It’s a toss-up now between the Clinton-Soros view that the only democracy allowed is a one party democracy that agrees with what they say and if that doesn’t happen they are ready to do a counter-revolution to destroy that democracy and that democratic vote.”
However, Gasic doesn’t think they would try to get rid of Trump.
“But they want to intimidate him to get him to agree to social peace at home as long as the global elites are allowed to pursue their wars abroad. They want him to become a neocon just like they are,” he added.
Since Trump won on Tuesday, protests have occurred out in cities across the US, all of which are Democratic strongholds. There have been three nights of protests, with more planned for Friday night and many slated for the weekend.
At a rally in Portland attended by more than 4,000 people on Thursday night, police declared it a riot and fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the crowd after claiming they were attacked by protesters. They arrested 26 people.
Leading Democratic funders in California have started a campaign calling to reject the election results, arguing it was not consistent with the state’s values.
Gasic believes someone is “stirring the pot” because “America has never traditionally had a problem with accepting the outcome of an election.”
“We now have Soros behind many ‘color’ revolutions in other countries and financing in effect a semi-color revolution in US,” Gasic told RT, a reference to the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, among others. “I don’t know if it categorizes as treason. He certainly operates from the shadows. His only legitimacy is his wallet. His only concern is to create the kind of democracy he can prop up and gain an interest from. That’s the kind of person who is behind this continuing protest against a valid, legitimate, free election.”
Among the emails hacked from Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta and published by WikiLeaks was one from September 9, 2007 that was sent from Podesta’s think-tank Center for American Progress and shared with MoveOn.org. It included an attachment, a strategy document seeking financial support from George and Jonathan Soros, Peter and Jonathan Lewis, Herb and Marion Sandler, Steve Bing, and John Sperling for grassroots efforts.
“Although the prospect for continual electoral gains are solid – and the assets of the progressive movement far better than in years past – several gaps remain to be filled. Chief among these is better connection between ground activity and substantive content and messaging,” wrote Podesta in the 13-page document to Democratic funders. “In order to win next year, we must do a better job of controlling the public dialogue and overall framework of the election.”
Further in the document, it refers to controlling the political discourse by using the networks of “grassroots organizing; multi-issue advocacy groups; think tanks; youth outreach; faith communities; micro-targeting outfits; the netroots and blogosphere…to drive the content of politics through a strong ‘echo chamber’ and message delivery system,” stated the document.
“And it is clear that each of you as individuals will play an important role in funding the remaining work.”
In an article from 2004, the Washington Post revealed that Soros and his wife, Susan Weber Soros, gave $1.46 million to Move.On.org.
In 2014, a data analytics company called Catalist, specializing in progressive causes, received a new round of investment funding, including $2.25 million from liberal billionaire George Soros, CNN reported at the time.
Before Congress adjourns for 2016, we have one last opportunity to build support for suspending US military and security aid to Honduras, where repression of human rights defenders and social movements continues unabated. With the US State Department certifying that the Honduran government is taking effective steps on human rights, despite continued assassinations and impunity, it is important that Congress pushes back. To date, 49 Representatives have co-sponsored the Berta Caceres Human Rights in Honduras Act, which would suspend US military and security aid to Honduras. Can you take a moment today to call your Representative if he or she has not yet signed on and ask him/her to sponsor HR 5474, the Berta Caceres Human Rights in Honduras Act?
See if your representative has already co-sponsored the bill here: https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/5474/cosponsors (Need the name of your Representative? Click here)
If not, call the Switchboard at 202-224-3121, ask to be transfered to your Representative and ask your him/her to sponsor the bill:
“Hello, I am calling to ask Rep. _____ to sponsor HR 5474, the Berta Caceres Human Rights in Honduras Act, before the end of the year. Internationally recognized Indigenous leader Berta Caceres and other leaders have been brutally assassinated in Honduras this year. The death threats and attacks on environmental activists, human rights leaders, journalists, and others continue today. Please sponsor HR 5474 before this year is out to call for an end to US military aid in Honduras.”If your Representative has signed on to support the bill, call his or her office to thank them (202-224-3121):
“Hello, I am calling to thank Rep. _____ for sponsoring HR 5474, the Berta Caceres Human Rights in Honduras Act, in 2016. The repression and death threats and attacks on environmental activists, human rights leaders, journalists, and others continue unabated in Honduras. I hope that your office will continue to speak out for the suspension of US security aid to Honduras at every opportunity.”
Thank you for all your efforts to call on Congress to cut destructive US security aid to Honduras in 2016. We look forward to continuing to work together in 2017.
In this exchange, notice how adamant and entrenched Congressman Adam Schiff is in his position. Schiff makes an accusation about Russia, builds a whole story on that foundation, and then goes on a verbal attack.
Fox host Tucker Carlson uses the phrase “weasel words”. This was a very sophisticated verbal barrage by Schiff that shifted the focus to Carlson, that he was the one with the problem for not “believing”. Schiff did not act humiliated or flustered. The exchange reveals how deeply committed Schiff and an unknown number of American officials are to pushing this particular story line and belief and to unbendingly defend it.
Officials such as Adam Schiff are directing American foreign policy based on their near-pathological prejudices and beliefs. How far will they go? The current results are visible in destroyed countries and lives, and these conflicts aren’t over yet.
From Sputnik News
December 9, 2016
On Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight, Congressman Adam Schiff was absolutely humiliated over his Russian hysteria and repeated claims that the Kremlin had hacked the election.
Democratic members of Congress have demanded in a letter that President Obama brief them on “Russian interference” in the election before leaving office, and Schiff was one of those who signed. To promote their cause, the California representative appeared on Fox News, and one of the most epic showdowns in the recent history of the network ensued. Carlson left the Democratic representative looking completely ridiculous, after the latter accused the host of being an “apologist for the Kremlin,” and telling him that he will need to “move his show to RT.”
“The information was true, and voters got to see that, and it helped them assess how they wanted to vote. Why is that bad? Are you really arguing against more information for voters?” Carlson asked.
“Are you really arguing in favor of a foreign adversarial party hacking into the American —” a stunned-looking Schiff began.
Tucker then asserted that he was not arguing in favor of it, but that the information was placed into the public view — and thus voters had the right to see and assess it.
Schiff then asserted that President-elect Donald Trump was the only beneficiary of “Russian meddling,” which was quickly shot down as “speculation” by Carlson. Schiff continued to assert that the intelligence community claimed that the Kremlin was behind the hacks.
“Here’s the thing,” Carlson began, “I’ve lived here a long time, I remember vividly the ‘massive stockpiles of WMD’s in Iraq,’ which the intelligence community assured us were there, and they weren’t, so pardon my skepticism, I think it’s a patriotic position.”
Schiff appeared to grow increasingly flustered and continued to push McCarthyist anti-Russian sentiment, which Carlson hilariously mocked.
“I’m confused by what you are alleging,” Carlson interjected. “You’re saying that you believe the Russian government hacked into John Podesta’s emails and that the voters knew too much? Then you’re saying what, that they hacked voting machines? What are you saying?”
Schiff then said that if the Russians had hacked into Carlson’s emails, that he would not seek to justify their release.
“Are you arguing that voters should not have seen that information?” Carlson repeated several times.
Eventually, Schiff admitted that in some cases the press should publish information that is illegally obtained, if it is of great public interest, but continued to claim that Russia was behind the hack and that the press are responsible for reporting where the information came from.
Carlson asserted that Schiff does not know if Russia was behind the hacks. He then challenged the congressman to turn to the camera and specifically say that, “I know the government of Vladimir Putin hacked John Podesta’s emails.” The representative would not comply.
“You’re carrying water for the Kremlin,” the clearly desperate representative said, now trying to deflect the conversation. “You’re going to have to move your show to RT — Russian Television.”
The assertion drew big laughs from the host, who called his statement “so dumb.”
“You know what — that is just so beneath your office, because it is so dumb, you’re being duplicitous,” Carlson laughed. “I’m asking you, did they hack Podesta’s emails and you can’t say it.”
Carlson asked him, again, to look into the camera and say the Russian government hacked Podesta’s emails.
“You can’t, and you know you can’t, and you’re hiding behind weasel-words,” Carlson said. “Say they hacked John Podesta’s emails.”
The flustered Schiff then accused Carlson of ignoring that Russia is behind the hack because it benefitted the Republican candidate. He also accused the Fox host of being an “apologist” for the Kremlin.
“I just think if you’re going to make a serious allegation about an actual country, which an actual government, you ought to know what you are talking about — and you don’t!” Carlson laughed.
The heated, and highly entertaining, exchange ended with the host mocking the congressman by saying, “I need to take a call from Vladimir Putin…so I need to put you on hold for one second.”
November 27th, 2016 – Fort Russ News –
Various – Translated by Inessa Sinchougova
The West’s fake wars in the Middle East are nothing new, but it is not well known that during the Clinton presidential campaign, a Pulitzer prize winning investigative journalist by the name of Seymour Hersch released a terrifying article – “Whose Sarin?” While it was largely swept under the rug by mainstream media, the findings confirm that Hillary Clinton not only knew of the rebels’ posession of chemical weapons in Libya, but that she authorised their use, in her capacity as Secretary of State. Later, the same kind of weapons would be blamed on Assad in Syria, in order to topple his government.
Based on Mr Lavrov’s press conference in recent days, it is evident that US funded chemical weapons use in Syria continue to this day.
Michael Moore has made some terrific movies in the past, and Where to Invade Next may be the best of them, but I expected Trumpland to be (1) about Trump, (2) funny, (3) honest, (4) at least relatively free of jokes glorifying mass murder. I was wrong on all counts and would like my $4.99 back, Michael.
Moore’s new movie is a film of him doing a stand-up comedy show about how wonderfully awesome Hillary Clinton is — except that he mentions Trump a bit at the beginning and he’s dead serious about Clinton being wonderfully awesome.
This film is a text book illustration of why rational arguments for lesser evilist voting do not work. Lesser evilists become self-delusionists. They identify with their lesser evil candidate and delude themselves into adoring the person. Moore is not pushing the “Elect her and then hold her accountable” stuff. He says we have a responsibility to “support her” and “get behind her,” and that if after two years — yes, TWO YEARS — she hasn’t lived up to a platform he’s fantasized for her, well then, never fear, because he, Michael Moore, will run a joke presidential campaign against her for the next two years (this from a guy who backed restricting the length of election campaigns in one of his better works).
Moore maintains that virtually all criticism of Hillary Clinton is nonsense. What do we think, he asks, that she asks how many millions of dollars you’ve put into the Clinton Foundation and then she agrees to bomb Yemen for you? Bwahahaha! Pretty funny. Except that Saudi Arabia put over $10 million into the Clinton Foundation, and while she was Secretary of State Boeing put in another $900,000, upon which Hillary Clinton reportedly made it her mission to get the planes sold to Saudi Arabia, despite legal restrictions — the planes now dropping U.S.-made bombs on Yemen with U.S. guidance, U.S. refueling mid-air, U.S. protection at the United Nations, and U.S. cover in the form of pop-culture distraction and deception from entertainers like Michael Moore.
Standing before a giant Air Force missile and enormous photos of Hillary Clinton, Michael Moore claims that substantive criticism of Clinton can consist of only two things, which he dismisses in a flash: her vote for a war on Iraq and her coziness with Wall Street. He says nothing more about what that “coziness” consists of, and he claims that she’s more or less apologized and learned her lesson on Iraq.
What? It wasn’t one vote. It was numerous votes to start the war, fund it, and escalate it. It was the lies to get it going and keep it going. It’s all the other wars before and since.
She says President Obama was wrong not to launch missile strikes on Syria in 2013.
She pushed hard for the overthrow of Qadaffi in 2011.
She supported the coup government in Honduras in 2009.
She has backed escalation and prolongation of war in Afghanistan.
She skillfully promoted the White House justification for the war on Iraq.
She does not hesitate to back the use of drones for targeted killing.
She has consistently backed the military initiatives of Israel.
She was not ashamed to laugh at the killing of Qadaffi.
She has not hesitated to warn that she could obliterate Iran.
She is eager to antagonize Russia.
She helped facilitate a military coup in Ukraine.
She has the financial support of the arms makers and many of their foreign customers.
She waived restrictions at the State Department on selling weapons to Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Qatar, all states wise enough to donate to the Clinton Foundation.
She supported President Bill Clinton’s wars and the power of the president to make war without Congress.
She has advocated for arming fighters in Syria and for a “No Fly” zone.
She supported a surge in Iraq even before President Bush did.
That’s just her war problem. What about her banking problem, prison problem, fracking problem, corporate trade problem, corporate healthcare problem, climate change problem, labor problem, Social Security problem, etc.?
Moore parts company from substantive critique in order to lament unproven rightwing claims that Hillary Clinton has murdered various people. “I hope she did,” screams Moore. “That’s who I want as Commander in Chief!” Hee hee hee.
Then Moore shamelessly pushes the myth that Hillary tried to create single-payer, or at least “universal” healthcare (whatever that is) in the 1990s. In fact, as I heard Paul Wellstone tell it, single-payer easily won the support of Clinton’s focus group, but she buried it for her corporate pals and produced the phonebook-size monstrosity that was dead on arrival but reborn in another form years later as Obamacare. She killed single-payer then, has not supported it since, and does not propose it now. (Well, she does admit in private that it’s the only thing that works, as her husband essentially blurts out in public.) But Moore claims that because we didn’t create “universal” healthcare in the 1990s we all have the blood of millions on our hands, millions whom Hillary would have saved had we let her.
Moore openly fantasizes: what would it be like if Hillary Clinton is secretly progressive? Remember that Moore and many others did the exact same thing with Obama eight years ago. To prove Clinton’s progressiveness Moore plays an audio clip of her giving a speech at age 22 in which she does not hint at any position on any issue whatsoever.
Mostly, however, Moore informs us that Hillary Clinton is female. He anticipates “that glorious moment when the other gender has a chance to run this world and kick some righteous ass.” Now tell me please, dear world, if your ass is kicked by killers working for a female president will you feel better about it? How do you like Moore’s inclusive comments throughout his performance: “We’re all Americans, right?”
Moore’s fantasy is that Clinton will dash off a giant pile of executive orders, just writing Congress out of the government — executive orders doing things like releasing all nonviolent drug offenders from prison immediately (something the real Hillary Clinton would oppose in every way she could).
But when he runs for president, Moore says, he’ll give everybody free drugs.
I’ll tell you the Clinton ad I’d like to see. She’s standing over a stove holding an egg. “This is your brain,” she says solemnly, cracking it into the pan with a sizzle. “This is your brain on partisanship.”
This last Friday it became public record that FBI Director James Comey reopened the Hillary Clinton email server investigation after repeatedly testifying before Congress and the world up to last July that he’d closed the case, after in his words not finding sufficient evidence of “any criminal wrongdoing” to indict her in spite of her four years as Secretary of State egregiously breaching our national security:’
But obviously a federal investigation still in process in late June never stopped Bill Clinton’s illegal ambush at the Phoenix airport of Comey’s boss US Attorney General Loretta Lynch (image right) “clearing” the way for Hillary to proceed without consequence to be anointed as the next US figurehead puppet president by the ruling elite.
Because it’s so blatantly obvious to the entire world that Hillary is guilty as sin, Comey’s whitewash didn’t go over well with either Americans or longtime FBI agents who reacted angrily to Comey’s over-the-top corruption. Subsequently in recent months Comey has had a virtual mutiny on his hands as in the FBI boss has lost all credibility, respect and moral authority.
Former federal attorney for the District of Columbia Joe diGenova spelled it all out in a WMAL radio interview last Friday just hours after the news was released that Comey had sent a letter informing Congress that the case is being reopened. DiGenova said that with an open revolt brewing inside the FBI, Comey was forced to go public on Friday with reopening the investigation. The former DC attorney added that the FBI investigators discovered more emails on a phone confiscated from the former New York Congressman and separated husband Anthony Weiner that also included his wife and longtime Hillary’s right-hand woman Huma Abedin’s communications that allegedly bear pertinent relevance to the Hillary case. Funny how things have a karmic way of coming full circle – the Clintons first introduced Weiner and Abedin 15 years ago and they married a half dozen years ago.
In a separate FBI investigation involving Weiner’s alleged sexting messages with a 15-year old minor, the phone in question was handed over to the FBI. The investigating teams of both the Weiner and Hillary cases compared notes and apparently additional emails not already issued by WikiLeaks or already in FBI possession recently came to light on Weiner’s phone. The legions of rank and file FBI agents were already fuming over Comey’s complete ethical and legal lapses in his choice not to indict Hillary. Joe diGenova believes that FBI personnel forced Comey’s hand to reopen the investigation after giving him the ultimatum that if he failed to do so, the FBI defiantly would. According to diGenova, this latest plot twist only proves that:
The original investigation was not thorough, and that it was an incompetent investigation.
We believe in what we are doing… If you are pushed you push back.” Julian Assange
The mutterings have become furious, and it is clear that the Democratic contender for the White House has again shown how traditional her ploys towards power are going to be. Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have again managed to pull the blinds off an episode of some consequence, not least because it casts insight into the inner workings of the already maligned Clinton complex.
For one, it shows that Hillary Clinton will not be averse to muddying the waters of international law she is so happy to proclaim against Russia, China and other contesting bug bears. For another, it does not suggest that a Clinton administration is going to go soft on whistleblowers, or the secrecy complex. The latter is richly ironic given the Secretary’s own slap dash attitude to secrecy protocols when heading the State Department.
The latest WikiLeaks related fuss began a few days ago with the publication on True Pundit that claimed, referring to “State Department Sources” that Clinton had queried the use of a drone to silence the growing nuisance of Assange before the document release that came to be known as Cablegate.[1]
The “early morning November meeting [in 2010] of State’s [the State Department] top brass” has Clinton posing the question: “Can’t we just drone this guy?” This was suggested by True Pundit as being a product of pure frustration, one increased in vain attempts to “cut off Assange’s delivery of the cables” and failing that, forging “a strategy to minimize the administration’s public embarrassment over the contents of the cables.”
Was such a blood thirsty query made in jest, the normalised, crude product of a culture already used to remotely directed extra-judicial assassinations? The report claims otherwise. Initial, dismissive laughter from officials in the room “quickly died off” before the terse manner of the Secretary. “Clinton said that Assange, after all, was a relatively soft target, ‘walking around’ freely and thumbing his nose without any fear of reprisals from the United States.”
Such casual talk about eliminating a designated enemy of theUnited States should be of little surprise. Classified emails (yes, those emails) were of particular interest to the FBI in its own criminal investigation into Secretary Clinton’s butter fingered handling of classified information.
A number touched on the approval process for drone strikes, executed by the Central Intelligence Agency in Pakistan,Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan. Only a few of these were ever rejected by Clinton. Even more dire, many, notably those touching on attacks in Pakistan, found their way onto her personal email account.[2]
The retorts to these allegations have been far from convincing, having much the effect of flogging by damp lettuce. (In a campaign featuring such characters as Clinton and Trump, these could never be any other way.) Clinton’s campaign manager, Robbie Mook, began to see allies of Trump coming out of every cyber nook and cranny.
Donald Trump and his allies are trying to do everything they can to change the debate here right now. Donald Trump failed at the debate, he became increasingly unwound, was tweeting at 3 a.m., making wild accusations of his own against the former Miss Universe and against Hillary Clinton. [3]
For Mook, Trump’s arsenal, supplemented by assistance from his allies (these are not necessarily elaborated with any distinction), had to “find some way to change this up, and they’re trying to do that by doubling down on conspiracy theories.”
Having drawn a web around his own conspiracy theory of compliance, slotting WikiLeaks, by innuendo and suggestion, into a Trump universe, he had to contend with the direct allegations about the drone strike. The lettuce started looking damper than ever. “I’m reticent to comment on anything that the WikiLeaks people have said. They’ve made a lot of accusations in the past.”
Many of these accusations have had the rather brutal semblance of truth to them, not to mention the previous spectacular of the DNC disclosures. These did not reveal so much a conspiracy of theory, but of solid fact in efforts, ruthlessly contrived, to eliminate Bernie Sanders as a threat to the Clinton campaign.
WikiLeaks has been thrilling, horrifying and agitating its audiences with the top hits of disclosure over the ten years it has been in existence. On Tuesday, the organisation celebrated 10 years of an often heady existence, which comprised the release of over ten million classified documents.
It was fitting that this pearler, featuring such a recurring figure of notoriety as Hillary Clinton, should surface at this moment of commemoration. Clinton’s campaign coven have been less than convincing in denying this point. This stands to reason, given that previous denials have tended to vanish before the onslaught of reality.
Like many previous WikiLeaks revelations, it will be up to voters, opinion makers, and the chattering classes to decide what this means. In the case of Tunisia, these assisted the first disruptions that came to be known as the Arab Spring. In the case of the United States, it may harden pre-existing sentiment, the sort fairly immune to any revelations, however grotesque.
A Trump in the White House sends shivers down the spine and turns the stomach of many a voter; but to have a Clinton there, redux of corruption, calamity and mistake, would also shock the sensible and enrage the conscionable.
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at SelwynCollege, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University,Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com
The Clintons will break all rules and laws to seize White House power. This is amply proven by the manner in which they rigged and stole the first presidential debate.
The operation appears to have been planned in advance of the September 26, 2016 event, involving the Clintons and their operatives, the debate organizers, the broadcast media (NBC and “moderator”Lester Holt), the managers of the venue, and the security detail at the facility.
The rig was carried out with near-military precision.
It began with the building of a special podium for Hillary Clinton: one that was smaller than the podium designated for Donald Trump. The smaller podium gave Hillary the illusion of being bigger in physical stature. More importantly, the podium seems to have been built or adapted with some sort of electronic console or teleprompter.
Who oversaw the building and modification of this podium? Why did the Trump people not notice this immediately?
Prior to the debate, tape footage shows how a device meant to be installed into Hillary’s podium was smuggled in by the Clintons and their operatives. Also brought in was a stack of documents; perhaps the debate questions obtained in advance from someone inside. The behavior appears highly suspicious; they are clearly up to something.
Photos also lay waste to the lie that Lester Holt was not wired during the debate. He clearly was, and a technician even removed his jacket to install it. Hillary herself might also have been wired. To what, we do not know, but they were both wired.
During the debate, footage shows Hillary Clinton’s podium lighting up with a computer screen, while Trump’s podium stays dark. Hillary’s hand appears to be pressing or toggling controls on the podium to scroll through her teleprompter screen. Her motions have been interpreted by some as involuntary tremors from Parkinson’s disease, but they appear to be far more deliberate than involuntary.
Analysis shows Hillary apparently giving signals to Lester Holt several times at key moments during the debate. Each time she scratched her nose or touched her face, Holt promptly interrupted, attacked and derailed Trump.
The timing was too systematic to be coincidental. Holt also clearly let Clinton have a free pass to speak ad nauseum without “fact checking” and without interruptions throughout the debate. This in addition to the inane topics—which did not include any questions about Clinton’s track record—were already a setup that did not favor Trump.
The most damning evidence of the rigging involves what happened after the debate ended. Footage shows the Clintons and their operatives “doing a sneaky dance” on the stage after the debate to retrieve the device from Hillary’s podium while the crowds mill about.
The main Clinton operative—the white-haired mustached man wearing glasses— has been identified as Brady Williamson, a Democratic Party strategist and lawyer, and a man who has worked for the Clintons for decades. Williamson, the “Cleaner Man” darts around, with two others lurking nearby acting as lookouts. Their movements suggest that they are clearly up to no good. Finally the entire Clinton team, including Bill and Hillary, surround the secret podium to hide the retrieval of the object(s) out of the podium. These items are passed from Williamson to another operative, and then secreted out.
(Were it not for sharp-eyed observers who analyzed this footage and posted it on YouTube, we would not have caught the Clintons pulling this off. This is why the powers that be want to control and shut down the Internet to prevent citizen investigative work such as this.)
A clear difference in criminal experience
Criminal behavior on the part of the Clintons is no surprise. It is how they have always done things, and gotten away with all of it. Criminality, secrecy, and deception are the foundations of their political dynasty. Any seasoned observer expects the dirtiest dirty tricks from them.
What is baffling is that this blatant fraud occurred without the Trump camp noticing, or doing anything about it. Trump agreed to the terms and mechanics of the debate well in advance. What happened to Trump’s security detail? How did no one notice how Hillary’s podium lit up? Why was the stage controlled only by Clinton operatives? Didn’t anyone not aligned to Clinton check the podiums and the stage before the debate began? Why didn’t someone confront Williamson or the other suspicious characters? Why didn’t Trump cry foul during the fraud, or afterwards?
If the Trump forces are unable to counter or match the dirty tricks and psy-ops of the highly experienced Clinton machine, they will not survive.
Foolishness while the world burns
The world is facing unprecedented crisis. Yet substantive issues are not addressed in these campaign events. If and when any real issues are approached, deception, lies and falsehoods dominate the rhetoric.
As expected, the Clinton faction is trying to reduce matters to the lowest common denominator, focusing attention on gossipy tabloid material, such as “rude things that Trump said or tweeted”, Trump’s “fat shaming” of women and Miss Universe contestants, and Trump’s tax returns. The Clintons have calculated, probably correctly, that the dumbed down American masses care much more about trivial matters than such real issues as world war, nuclear holocaust, collapsing economies and other realities. The low road, familiar to the dirty Clintons, is their key to victory. They view the populace with utter contempt. Their goal is to seize power, and to hell with the rest.
Tragically, instead of turning matters to his advantage, Trump has so far taken the bait, falling into the Clinton trap, by reacting to the Clinton gossip. He has even added more hot air to the mix, blabbering about his own business affairs and matters of irrelevance. He himself is the embodiment of tabloid gossip and a reality show circus, and he has done a poor job changing this impression. Both Clinton and Trump are head cases.
Even when he has been given opportunities to drive the discourse, Trump has failed to articulate how he would be less of a New World Order neocon/war monger/corporatist than Clinton. He and Clinton argue about who is the better “anti-terrorist” and the tougher adversary against Russia and China, the more aggressive “law and order cop”.
Yes, Trump has criticized Clinton and Obama for some of their war policies, for “disasters” such as creating ISIS, etc. But would Trump have ended the wars if he had been at the controls?
Does he intend to end them now? Would he stop the regime change agenda in Syria? Would he make peace with Russia and stop military operations aimed at Russian forces? Would Trump end the criminal reign of the CIA? Would Trump do anything about the decades of crimes of the Clintons and Bushes, for which they deserve severe punishment? Would he prosecute the highest figures of the New World Order? Would Trump dare expose the fact that Bush-Clinton/neoliberal-neocon is a charade that masks the united criminal reality that is the New World Order? Unless the answer to all of these questions is yes, then Trump is no hero, either.
Trump will not pull the plug on the machine that put him on the map; the system that made him rich. It would be delusional to think he would.
“Not being Clinton” is not, by itself, a qualification. If Trump is backed by the Bush faction, and by neocons such as his vice presidential partner Mike Pence, and if Trump pushes ideas that appeal to right-wing extremists and the Religious Right, then he is simply a different path to the same holocaust, with slightly differences in style and timing.
Given her well documented penchant for war crimes and murder, Hillary Clinton is the larger threat to the planet. But a Trump/neocon/Republican administration would likely also result in continued chaos and suffering, and dangers of great magnitude.
The next circus moment
The second debate scheduled for October 9, 2016 promises nothing better for Trump. The last debate saw Hillary Clinton and Lester Holt ganging up on Trump. This next time, it will be three against one.
One of the “moderators” is CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who was a CIA intern, who likely still functions as an intelligence asset.
CNN is so heavily skewed to the Clintons, and dominated by former Clintonites, that it is referred to derisively as the “Clinton News Network”. Cooper has pushed the lie that Lester Holt was deferential to Trump, when in fact Holt constantly interrupted Trump and bashed him every time Hillary asked him to. Cooper’s statements suggest that he will attack Trump even more aggressively than Holt.
The other “moderator” will be ABC’s Martha Raddatz, who was White House correspondent in the George W. Bush administration. Raddatz is further proof that the corporate media is a revolving door through which Washington insiders slither and slime back and forth.
As long as the Clinton operatives continue to be allowed to get away with fraud and criminal shenanigans—-be it rigged podiums, rigged stage props, hidden teleprompters, hidden transceivers, cheat notes, and collusion with “moderators”—and as long as the corporate media continues to conspire with the Clintons without consequences, then Donald Trump will be toast again.
That is what the Clintons are counting on.
The original source of this article is Global Research
To date, 49 Representatives have co-sponsored the Berta Caceres Human Rights in Honduras Act, which would suspend US military and security aid to Honduras. Can you take a moment today to call your Representative if he or she has not yet signed on and ask him/her to sponsor HR 5474, the Berta Caceres Human Rights in Honduras Act?
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