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The US State Department has issued a statement accusing the Syrian government of having carried out a false flag chemical weapons attack in northwestern Aleppo with the intent to blame it on the jihadist factions in the region, citing “credible info” that the public has not been permitted to see. Never mind the known fact that there are actual, literal Al Qaeda affiliates who have admitted to using chemical weapons in Aleppo, and who are known to have used chemical weapons throughout Syria even by the State Department’s own admission: the Official Narrative is that only the Syrian government uses chemical weapons, so the chemical weapons usage must necessarily be a false flag staged by Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

Except they didn’t use the words “false flag”. Despite the accusation being the exact definition of the thing that a false flag attack is, you won’t see the US government using that term, nor will you ever see it used in this instance by any of the authorized mainstream narrative-framing institutions like CNN or Fox News. This is because the term “false flag” is reserved solely for mention when referring to crazy, kooky Kremlin propaganda, as in the insane, unhinged, tinfoil hat belief that terrorists in Syria might possibly have some kind of motive to stage a false flag chemical attack in order to get the US, UK and France to act as their air force in a retaliatory strike against the Syrian government. That kind of false flag would be completely inconceivable to any right-minded empire loyalist, and is forbidden to even think about.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

U.S. Claims ‘False Flag’ Chemical Attack In Syria

December 7, 2018

U.S. Claims ‘False Flag’ Chemical Attack In Syria

So apparently the U.S. government believes that chemical false flag attacks in Syria are possible.

On Friday the State Dept. issued an official statement claiming “credible information” that refutes prior Syrian government and Russian claims of an opposition chemical weapons attack in Aleppo on Nov. 24.

*Aftermath of the Nov. 24 attack which saw civilians suffering from reported chlorine inhalation. via SANA*

The event was the first time throughout the seven-year long war that international headlines pointed to anti-Assad rebels using chemical weapons, in this case chlorine, against government areas. **So of course for U.S. officials it must be a false flag attack staged by Assad.**

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Major Psy-Op in Europe Exposed: UK Government Tramples on Values It Vowed to Protect

November 26, 2018

Major Psy-Op in Europe Exposed: UK Government Tramples on Values It Vowed to Protect

Those who have been saying that the West has turned Russia into a scapegoat to be blamed for each and every thing that goes wrong have been proved right. We have witnessed concocted stories invented to denigrate Moscow that have gone viral as directed by the secret services. The UK, the country that is spearheading the anti-Russian information campaign, offers a good example that illustrates how this is being done.

An online group of hackers known as Anonymous has just revealed covert UK activities in the EU. According to the documents released by that group, London is in the midst of a major program to interfere in the internal affairs of EU members, the US, and Canada. Anonymous threatens to release more information on the clandestine operations of the UK government, unless it agrees to remove the shroud of secrecy protecting those information-warfare efforts. On Nov. 24 Twitter deleted RT comments on the issue. The UK knows it has friends it can rely on in a crunch.

The Integrity Initiative is a London-based organization set up and funded by the government-friendly Institute for Statecraft, in cooperation with the Free University of Brussels (VUB) to wage information-warfare operations against Russia. Anonymous calls it a “large-scale information secret service.” It aims to “change attitudes in Russia itself” as well as the influence of Russian natives living abroad. The Integrity Initiative’s budget for the fiscal year ending on March 31, 2019 is estimated at £1.96 million ($2.51 million). The network has received grants from NATO, the US State Department, and Facebook.

The Initiative’s operations have been kept under wraps. Its activities are conducted by “clusters” of local politicians, journalists, military personnel, scientists, and academics involved in anti-Russian propaganda efforts. The list includes William Browder, a US-British businessman convicted in absentia in Russia for tax evasion.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

In Major Defeat For Trump, Judge Blocks Construction Of Keystone XL Pipeline

November 9, 2018

In Major Defeat For Trump, Judge Blocks Construction Of Keystone XL Pipeline

In a setback for the Trump administration, a federal judge in Montana temporarily halted construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline late on Thursday on the grounds that the U.S. government did not complete a full analysis of the environmental impact of the TransCanada Corp project and failed to justify its decision granting a permit for the 1,200-mile long project designed to connect Canada’s tar sands crude oil with refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast. The ruling came in a lawsuit that several environmental groups filed against the U.S. government in 2017, soon after President Donald Trump announced a presidential permit for the project.

The judge, Brian Morris of the U.S. District Court in Montana, said President Trump’s State Department ignored crucial issues of climate change in order to further the president’s goal of letting the pipeline be built. In doing so, the administration ran afoul of the Administrative Procedure Act, which requires “reasoned” explanations for government decisions, particularly when they represent reversals of well-studied actions.

Morris wrote that a U.S. State Department environmental analysis “fell short of a ‘hard look’” at the cumulative effects of greenhouse gas emissions and the impact on Native American land resources. He also ruled the analysis failed to fully review the effects of the current oil price on the pipeline’s viability and did not fully model potential oil spills and offer mitigations measures.

However, the decision does not permanently block a pipeline permit. It requires the administration to conduct a more thorough review of potential adverse impacts related to climate change, cultural resources and endangered species. The court essentially ordered a do-over.

Morris, a former clerk to the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, was appointed to the bench by President Obama.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

American War Declaration

October 22, 2018

American War Declaration

Wess Mitchell, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs in the US State Department, gave a remarkable presentation to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 21 August 2018. Titled “US Strategy Towards the Russian Federation” it ostensibly lays out the US reaction to Russia’s continuing aggression, hostility, interference and so forth. It is written in the tone of a sadder but wiser householder who, formerly expecting better from his neighbour, now realises that there will be no better: the neighbour, alas, is not capable of decent behaviour. While remaining ever hopeful that reason will prevail, the peaceful neighbour must gird himself for an unpleasant struggle – Washington must respond to Moscow’s disruption. How sad.

But in all of these areas, it is up to Russia, not America, to take the next step. Our policy remains unchanged: steady cost-imposition until Russia changes course.

But, in an interesting slip of the tongue, he gave away the real policy. I say “slip of the tongue” because the State Department version of his speech leaves out the two sentences that tell you that most of Mitchell’s testimony is sleight of hand to distract the audience.

Senate testimony version

The starting point of the National Security Strategy is the recognition that America has entered a period of big-power competition, and that past US policies have neither sufficiently grasped the scope of this emerging trend nor adequately equipped our nation to succeed in it. Contrary to the hopeful assumptions of previous administrations, Russia and China are serious competitors that are building up the material and ideological wherewithal to contest US primacy and leadership in the 21^st Century.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

US Demands For More Oil Could Backfire

October 8, 2018

US Demands For More Oil Could Backfire

This week the State Department accused OPEC of hiding spare capacity exceeding 1.4 million barrels daily. It urged the cartel to use it to stop the oil price rally that has continued uncomfortably close to midterm elections. The request—or demand, depending on your interpretation—is unprecedented and it might do more harm than good.

Bloomberg quoted a veteran energy analyst from Jefferies, Jason Gammel, as saying, “This is the lowest level of spare capacity in the global system relative to demand that I’ve ever seen. Spare capacity is moving to a precariously low point.” The problem is, nobody seems to be certain exactly how much OPEC’s spare capacity is.

In its latest Short-Term Energy Outlook, the EIA estimated OPEC’s spare production capacity at 1.66 million bpd. But the International Energy Agency last month estimated OPEC’s spare capacity at 2.7 million bpd and is fast declining. What we do know, however, is how much spare capacity Saudi Arabia has: 1.3 million bpd, as revealed by the Energy Minister of the Kingdom during the Russian Energy Week in Moscow.

This is bad news. Until now, various sources, including the Saudis themselves and the EIA, put the Kingdom’s spare capacity at between 1.5 and 2 million bpd. In June, President Trump said the Saudis could pump 12 million bpd. The IEA concurred. Saudi Arabia’s September production rate rose to 10.7 million bpd.

From this level of production, with 1.3 million bpd in spare capacity, we get a maximum production rate of 12 million bpd, indeed. However, Khalid al-Falih delivered a worrying message: Saudi Arabia will spend US$20 billion on maintaining and boosting its spare capacity in the coming years. The news naturally cast doubt on whether the current capacity will be sufficient to cover demand.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

US Evacuating Consulate In Iraq, Citing Threats From Iran

September 28, 2018

US Evacuating Consulate In Iraq, Citing Threats From Iran

On Friday the State Department announced it is evacuating all non-essential personnel from the US consulate in Basra, Iraq.

The drastic move comes after a month of heavy anti-Iran and anti-Iraqi government protests that have gripped the southern city, which has led to sectarian rioting and the burning of Shia militia buildings, as well as the torching of the Iranian consulate early this month. During the first week of September the US embassy in Baghdad’s green zone also came under attack by mortar fire, which US officials and military analysts blamed on Iran-backed militias.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cited threats from Iran as the reason for ordering the Basra consulate evacuation, and in a separate statement a senior US official confirmed to CNN that the “ordered departure” was due to “security threats from Iran.”

*Protesters in Basra torched Iraqi government buildings in early September. Image source: AFP*

“US Embassy Baghdad will continue to provide consular services to US citizens in Basra,” the State Department said in its statement referencing the massive and highly fortified US compound in Iraq’s capital, which the Basra consul staff will evacuate to. It also issued an updated travel advisory for Iraq noting the removal of non-essential personnel from Basra.

Pompeo explained the evacuation order further as, “Threats to our personnel and facilities in Iraq from the Government of Iran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, and from militias facilitated by and under the control and direction of the Quds Force leader Qasem Soleimani have increased over the past several weeks.”

Pompeo further noted that “there have been repeated incidents of indirect fire from elements of those militias directed at our Consulate General in Basrah and our Embassy in Baghdad, including within the past twenty-four hours.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How the U.N. Joined America’s War Against Syria

September 20, 2018

How the U.N. Joined America’s War Against Syria

America has been at war to transfer control of Syria over to the Saud family, who own Saudi Arabia; and America has been trying to do this ever since the first of the CIA’s coups against Syria failed in 1949. But only during the U.S. Presidency of Barack Obama did the United Nations become a tool in this American enterprise. Obama entered the White House in 2009 secretly hoping to be able to overthrow Syria’s Government; and when the CIA-assisted “Arab Spring” uprisings in the Arab world started flowering in 2011, the U.S. Government had the important U.N. operatives fully on-board assisting the U.S. Government to assist this overthrow — to hand Syria to the Sauds (the Sauds being America’s most important international ally, and the world’s richest family) to control.

By the time of June 2011, the Obama State Department, under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was already deep into planning the overthrow not only of Syria’s Government (planning the international recruitment of jihadists to do that), but of Ukraine’s Government (planning international recruitment of nazis to do that).

Although the common view is that America’s main allies are European, that viewpoint is no longer true. Today’s America is allied mainly with the Sauds, and with Israel, which latter is the Sauds’ chief lobbying arm both in North America and in Europe, because Christian-majority populations are far more sympathetic to Jews than to Moslems. For a politician to be publicly sympathetic to Jews is much better for a politician than for him/her to be publicly sympathetic to Muslims. So, Israel carries the Sauds’ lobbying water, not only their own.

On 3 December 2011 (near the end of the year when the “Arab Spring” started), the independent investigative journalist Sibel Edmonds headlined “US Media: Distorters of Reality & Gravediggers of Truth”, and she reported:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“Resist Everything”: Socialist Within State Department Exposed In Veritas “Deep State” Sting

September 18, 2018

“Resist Everything”: Socialist Within State Department Exposed In Veritas “Deep State” Sting

James O’Keefe and his undercover investigators have once again exposed extreme left-wing activists pursuing a progressive agenda within a position of power – this time infiltrating the State Department.

O’Keefe’s team has previously released undercover videos revealing radical leftists at Twitter bragging about “shadow banning” conservatives, Democrat operatives paid by the Clinton campaign engaging in voter fraud, CNN employees admitting that the Trump-Russia story was a “fake news” ratings bonanza, and the “culture of anti-Trump bias” at the New York Times.

In their latest installment, Veritas met Stuart Karaffa – a State Department employee who is also a ranking member of the Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America who is “engaged in radical socialist political activity on the taxpayer’s dime,” while actively advocating for “resistance to official government policies,” according to Project Veritas.

Mr. Karaffa’s loyalties seem to be with DSA, not with his employer.

Karaffa told an undercover Project Veritas journalist that he performs DSA activism while at work for the State Department. He explained that he drafts DSA communications while on the job at State Department: –Project Veritas

“… I’m careful about it. I don’t leave a paper trail, like I leave emails, and like any press s**t that comes up I leave that until after 5:30. But as soon as 5:31 hits, got my like draft messages ready to send out,” says Karaffa, who doesn’t believe he’ll get caught for pursuing his own agenda within the Department of State.

“Maybe someday I’ll go to board of elections jail, probably not,” he said, adding: “I have nothing to lose. It’s impossible to fire federal employees.” Karaffa says “nobody knows” about his activism – and that it’s easy to circumvent State Department ethics disclosures because “… somebody just rubber stamps [the form] and it goes forward… I don’t know if [the ethics officer is] all there. He’s so checked out…”

Watch:

One Minute to Midnight: Latest US Sanctions Propel Nations Towards Risk of War

August 25, 2018

One Minute to Midnight: Latest US Sanctions Propel Nations Towards Risk of War

The State Department’s announcement on August 8 that the US government was going to impose sweeping new economic sanctions on Russia over the still mysterious and unresolved Skripal Affair was a truly fateful one. The famous Doomsday Clock of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists should have immediately been moved forward to one minute to midnight on receipt of the news. (It already is set at only two minutes to the midnight that signifies catastrophic global thermonuclear war.)

For the lesson of history is a clear one: Such sanctions do far worse than prevent constructive dialogue and efforts to settle major differences of policy and interest between great nations. When they are seen as an existential threat to the very existence of that nation, they drive the targeted country’s government to consider all-out war.

That is exactly how the trans-oceanic total war between the United States and Japan – the very first and so far thankfully only war that has seen the use of nuclear weapons against cities and human populations – began. And it was the United States that triggered it.

Japan had been remorselessly expanding into China and across the Pacific Theater for a decade and its ferocious war of conquest against China was already four years old and had claimed millions of lives by the summer of 1941.

It was then that US code breakers learned of Japan’s plans also to occupy the French colonial territories of Indochina – today the nations of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

In response therefore, and at the insistent urging of his assistant secretary of state for economic affairs Dean Acheson, President Franklin D. Roosevelt imposed a devastating embargo on the US export of raw materials that Japan could use for war.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

VIPS Plead for Humanitarian Asylum for Julian Assange

August 7, 2018

VIPS Plead for Humanitarian Asylum for Julian Assange

Memorandum for: The US Embassies of Ecuador and the United Kingdom, and the U.S. State Department

From: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Subject: Humanitarian Asylum for Julian Assange

For six years, WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange has been effectively imprisoned without charges at Ecuador’s London embassy. In that time, two international courts and dozens of respected legal and human rights organizations have decried actions of the UK, US and Swedish governments that confine the journalist in what now amounts to torturous isolation, deprived of space, sunlight, visitors, communication with the outside and necessary medical care.

The catalyst was an arcane effort by the Swedish government to extradite Assange for questioning about claims of sexual improprieties.¹ The UK government subsequently arrested Assange and released him on bail.² Ecuador granted Assange asylum at its embassy based on concerns he could be extradited to the US where he would not receive a fair trial and could receive a death sentence.³ (Former Obama DOJ spokesperson Matthew Miller has acknowledged that US officials intended to arrest Julian Assange but decided against it because of the expected impacts on press freedom.)⁴

The UK government threatens to arrest Assange if he leaves the embassy for “not surrendering at bail” and refuses to rule out extradition to the US.⁵ Under a new president, Ecuador has cut off Assange’s communications with the outside world.

Experts Criticize Treatment of Assange

In June, 2014, The National Lawyers Guild and 59 human rights and legal organizations petitioned the United Nations to act on violations of Assange’s “fundamental human rights.” In addition, “33 union, human rights, media and civil society organizations” petitioned the Human Rights Commission in Geneva on behalf of freedom for Assange.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

State Dept Accuses Russia And Syria Of Gassing Civilians Before Any Investigation

April 9, 2018

State Dept Accuses Russia And Syria Of Gassing Civilians Before Any Investigation

Just weeks ago, two firebreathing neoconservative war whores were promoted to the highest echelons of influence within the Trump administration. The new National Security Advisor John Bolton only has one key on his piano, and that key is war. Neoconservative hawk Mike Pompeo was promoted from the head of the notoriously vicious Central Intelligence Agency to Hillary Clinton’s old job as Secretary of State after famously announcing that he was trying to make the CIA “a much more vicious agency.”

Trump supporters talk a lot about the Deep State as though it is something separate from and at odds with the Trump administration. If that was ever the case, it certainly isn’t anymore. Trump might be in a power struggle with certain factions or aspects of the power establishment, but you don’t promote bloodthirsty swamp monsters like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo to positions of maximum impact if you’re fighting the Deep State.

Pompeo’s State Department has issued a press release by way of its soulless spokeswoman Heather Nauert about the nonsensical new report that the Syrian government once again decided to kill a bunch of children with poison gas at the least strategically opportune moment imaginable. The press release is riddled with falsehoods and jaw-dropping accusations which cannot possibly be based in fact since they were made mere hours after the allegations surfaced, long before any sort of investigation into them could have even begun, much less been completed.

Spokesperson Heather Nauert’s Statement on Chemical Attack in Douma.

✔

We continue to closely follow disturbing reports regarding alleged chemical weapons attack targeting a hospital in Douma, #Syria. The Assad regime and its backers must be held accountable and any further attacks prevented immediately. https://go.usa.gov/xQ2YS

12:37 AM – Apr 8, 2018

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Oceania, ‘Tis For Thee: The World of ‘1984’ Forming Now

April 7, 2018

Oceania, ‘Tis For Thee: The World of ‘1984’ Forming Now

“Oceania” was a nation described in George Orwell’s “1984” as being comprised of Britain (called “Airstrip One,”) and the United States. There were two other superpowers, namely Eurasia and Eastasia. Other lands rich in resources were contested over, such as Africa and assumingly South America…lands never kept by any of three Super-states for any significant period. The “flux” in conquests was exactly what the MIC (Military Industrial Complex) of our time would have termed “necessary” to justify large expenditures: War as the focal purpose, rather than the exceptional event.

We see a parallel in today’s world with huge defense budgets and troop deployments keeping the contracts on the move and siphoning off a considerable amount of national revenues to keep the patriotic war machines moving…respective of each nation. The psychology: keep the population agitated and on a continual war-footing, using a “threat” (either real, created, or imagined) to accomplish this.

You are witnessing the final alignment of those spheres of influence that are almost identical to the novel that Orwell wrote. Look at the situation with the alleged Russian poisoning of an intelligence operative and his daughter in Britain. The United States showed “solidarity” with Great Britain by expelling 60 Russian diplomats and closed the Russian consulate in Seattle, Washington. Russia countered by ordering the expulsion of an equal amount of American embassy personnel.

Yet the interesting fact is that the other nations who followed suit in the “humanitarian crusade” of the alleged Russian poisoning of former FSB agent Skripal and his daughter? The poisoning may have been done by the British, not the Russians. The U.S. State Department has made several statements to the tune that the Russians do not “see eye to eye with us or share our values of freedom and democracy.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

U.S. Tourists Will Be Required To Turn Over Their Social Media History

March 30, 2018

U.S. Tourists Will Be Required To Turn Over Their Social Media History

The State Department will unveil new rules on Friday requiring most visitors or immigrants to the United States to turn over their recent social media histories, in accordance with one of President Trump’s key national security enhancements contained in his “extreme vetting” executive order.

In addition, travelers would be required to provide previous phone numbers, email addresses and a history of international travel from the preceding five years – as well as disclose any immigration problems they’ve had anywhere in the world, or any potential family ties to terrorism, according to the Washington Times.

Moreover, people from countries where female genital mutilation is common practice would be directed to a website to ensure that they know the practice is illegal in the United States.

The Friday publication will begin a “comment period” before the government finalizes the policies.

“This upgrade to visa vetting is long overdue, and it’s appropriate to apply it to everyone seeking entry, because terrorism is a worldwide problem. The aim is to try to weed out people with radical or dangerous views,” said Jessica Vaughan, the director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies – who called the effort to discourage female genital mutilation “innovative.”

“The message needs to be sent that ‘we don’t do that here,’ ” she said.

Vaughan also says the State Department should also request information on whether female travelers intend to enter the United States in order to give birth – a practice known as “birth tourism” in which women visit the U.S. so that their child born on American soil is a U.S. citizen.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has entertained plans to track the social media accounts of immigrants entering the country, however the State Department’s Friday proposal would apply to tourists and others entering the country on temporary visas. In all, some 14 million people would be affected by the request for information, according to the department.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

A Blank Check for Repression? A Saudi Leader Visits Washington

March 23, 2018

A Blank Check for Repression? A Saudi Leader Visits Washington

It’s a classic narrative: the foreign dignitary of a US ally visits Washington, the Pentagon and State Department are intent on selling him a large weapons package, a munitions maker seeks to capitalize on the visit, some senators resist and point to how US weapons are being used by that ally to kill civilians, and the administration answers that the US is not “a party” to the hostilities and must show good faith to the ally or risk losing its favor.

This is the Saudi Arabia story as its new leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, comes to Washington. His country, as I have reported more than a few times, is valued by the Trump administration for several reasons, none of them compelling: a “bulwark” against Iran’s Shiite regime, thus an unofficial partner to Israel in a nonexistent peace process; a major oil producer; a longtime customer for US weapons, in the billions of dollars (recall last year’s $110-billion arms package); the senior partner to the US in the bloody war in Yemen (an estimated 10,000 civilian casualties); and, perhaps most importantly these days, a good friend to private investors, starting with the Real-Estate-Agents-in-Chief, Donald Trump and Jared Kushner.

Now this Saudi leader, hailed as a modernizer and reformer in some media, expects a warm welcome—and the chance to purchase another $1 billion in weapons, including Raytheon Corporation’s precision-guided munitions. He will thus gain US endorsement to more efficiently carry out war crimes in Yemen, a country in collapse and in the midst of cholera and malnutrition epidemics. All this largesse to maintain US “influence” and help make the Middle East more “stable.”

Back in the day, the Obama administration came, belatedly to be sure, to the conclusion that constant support of the Saudis had been mistaken and should no longer be allowed to get in the way of other US interests. One of those was pursuing a nuclear agreement with Iran. (The full story is in Trita Parsi’s Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy.) Under Trump, however, that direction has been reversed. Not only is Saudi Arabia very much in favor; it benefits from the administration’s determination early on to loosen restrictions on arms sales abroad in order to make US arms manufacturer’s more competitive.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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