US Cops Act Like Soldiers, While US Soldiers Police the World

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Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford

07 Oct 2019
 

Local police and foreign-deployed US militaries both practice a kind of “community policing” designed to control and gather intelligence on occupied populations, said Dererka Purnell, a movement lawyer, writer and activist. Purnell recently published an article in War and Peace, titled “Mass Shootings, Militarism and Policing are Chapters in the Same Manifesto.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford are senior editors with Black Agenda Report, the nation's leading Black political analysis journal.

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ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS
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And before you leave

THE DEEP STATE IS CLOSING IN

The big social media —Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter—are trying to silence us.



Whistleblower Who Challenged FBI’s Profiling And Informant Recruitment Practices Is Sentenced To Four Years In Prison

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

Kevin Gosztola Shadowproof

Albury (right) with his attorney, Joshua Dratel, walk out of the Federal Courthouse in St. Paul Thursday, Oct. 18, 2018.

[dropcap]F[/dropcap]ormer FBI special agent Terry Albury was sentenced to four years in prison for retaining and releasing documents to a media outlet on the FBI’s racial profiling, surveillance, and informant recruitment practices.

He accepted an agreement in April, where he pled guilty to two counts of violating the Espionage Act. Both offenses are felonies.

Albury was the only black agent in the region for most of the time that he worked for the FBI’s terrorism squad in Minnesota. He was a special agent in the FBI’s Minneapolis Field Office from 2012 to August 28, 2017.

His defense attorneys asserted Albury’s unauthorized disclosures to the Intercept were an “act of conscience, of patriotism, and in the public interest.” They were made for “no personal gain whatsoever.”

“The documents at issue advanced the discourse necessary in a free society about how to maintain the delicate balance between freedom and security,” his attorneys added. “He was endeavoring to resolve what for him became an insurmountable moral conflict between his role as an FBI agent sworn to uphold the written law and his personal commitment to social justice and human rights.”

The federal court in Minnesota was urged to approve a sentence, where Albury was placed on probation.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions celebrated the sentencing of Albury and declared, “We are conducting perhaps the most aggressive campaign against leaks in [the Justice Department’s] history.”

As Cointelpro amply demonstrated, the notion the FBI and other police agencies represent the interests of the ordinary citizen is a very generous and often misguided assumption. The police agencies' first and foremost mandate is to preserve the status quo, and protect private property—BIG private property—at home and abroad.

“Today’s sentence should be a warning to every would-be leaker in the federal government that if they disclose classified information, they will pay a high price,” Sessions added.

U.S. Attorney G. Zachary Terwilliger of the Eastern District of Virginia stated, “Albury transmitted classified information not just to one hostile foreign power but to every hostile foreign power with the ability to pick up a newspaper or access the Internet.”

Terwilliger’s argument is identical to the argument U.S. military prosecutors pursued against former Pfc. Chelsea Manning, when they accused her of “aiding the enemy” by disclosing documents to WikiLeaks. Their pursuit of that charge was widely viewed as a threat to press freedom.

“This was not whistleblower activity,” Terwilliger continued. “Albury made no attempts to engage in any of the legitimate whistleblower processes available to him, and instead chose to betray his oath and his colleagues by leaking classified national defense information to the press.”

As described in the sentencing memorandum submitted by Albury’s attorneys, he became an FBI agent in the late 1990s because he wanted to help stop sex trafficking. He worked on the FBI’s Crimes Against Children Unit, which handled child sexual abuse and child sex tourism cases.

Following the September 11 attacks, Albury was on a terrorism squad in San Jose. This work happened when the FBI is known to have routinely profiled Muslims. Agents attended meetings and religious services to document and disseminate “names of attendees and their associations and affiliations,” as well as the “contents of sermons, speeches, or conversations.”

“Albury grew increasingly troubled by the FBI’s approach to counter-terrorism enforcement. He was under constant pressure to bolster the squad’s number of active investigations and informants, irrespective of the threat level posed by the individuals in question,” according to Albury’s attorneys.

As alleged abuses unfolded, Albury did not leak information to the press. He complained internally.

“Cases were opened on thin or non-existent evidence.” Yet, when Albury protested, he was informed “the degree of predication was not his concern.”

When the San Jose squad’s case numbers grew, Albury was increasingly concerned about the “factual bases” for cases. He saw them as “highly unethical” because they were “based on information from informants, who were known to be unreliable or deceptive.”

Oral reports to supervisors did not lead to any changes to policy. He voiced his displeasure in “closing statements” of reports. Supervisors ignored or disregarded his concerns.

“At this point, he began to feel personally responsible for, and thus deeply conflicted by, his participation in surveillance of civilians that he viewed as unduly invasive and harassing. His distress at the nature of the work he observed and participated in was compounded his co-workers’ coded statements about Hispanics and African-Americans, with the caveat expressed to Mr. Albury that he should not be offended because he was ‘different” and not like ‘those other black people.'”

Haunted By Terrors And Disillusionment

[dropcap]F[/dropcap]rom December 2009 to April 2010, Albury was deployed to Iraq. He “frequently witnessed deep animus held by U.S. personnel toward Iraqis, and on more than one occasion, [he] believed that he was complicit in acts of torture.”

The sentencing memo from his attorneys describes two instances, where he was certain he was implicated in torture.

At a prison camp in Iraq, he interviewed a detainee accused of killing U.S. soldiers. He had difficulty getting the detainee to talk to him and shared this frustration with a military officer. Days later, the detainee was “more talkative and provided more information than in the past.” Albury believed this was a result of torture.

He was assigned to “interview a detainee brought to a building by CIA officers who were working with the Iraqi Special Forces. The goal was to address the detainee’s alleged contacts in a certain U.S. city.”

“The detainee was brought in, shackled from head to toe, masked and blindfolded with black goggles over his blindfold, and in an orange jumpsuit,” according to the sentencing memo. Albury “vividly recalled that the man moved as if he was in pain, and the sound of shuffling and shackles as he entered the room reminded him of Guantanamo prisoners. Mr. Albury came to believe that this man had been or would be the subject of torture.”

Albury returned to the United States and was “haunted by the terrors and disillusionment” of his deployment. He felt depression, anger, and fear. He did not want to work on the terrorism squad in San Jose anymore and was reassigned to a team that responded to crime and extortion in the Vietnamese community in San Jose.

The kind of moral injury that Albury suffered only worsened in Minnesota. He was part of a squad that was investigating support for al-Shabab, which the defense attorneys describe as an “Islamic militia group seeking to topple Somalia’s weak transitional government.” The U.S. government designated the militia as a terrorist organization.

Albury had difficulty with the “cultural attitudes” present in directives he was supposed to implement against Africans and African-Americans, particularly Somalis. He firmly believed that his work recruiting and supervising individuals who were supposed to work as informants bred “profound distrust between law enforcement representatives and the Somali community.”

As the sentencing memo describes, Albury felt “deeply conflicted by his involvement in raids and interrogations that he increasingly saw as unjustified and ineffective. He also felt increasingly isolated as he did not view any of his colleagues as people with whom he could share his concerns.”

“Albury’s isolation and alienation was compounded by his observations and experiences of racism, including racial jokes and slurs and verbal hazing, directed both at himself and at minority communities in Minneapolis, in particular the Somali community.”

In 2016, Albury downloaded, removed, and copied documents on the recruitment of potential informants, as well as documents on policies for identifying extremists, which have been criticized as “profiling and intimidating minority communities.”

When he was assigned in 2017 to work for Customs and Border Protection at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport, he was charged with recruiting potential informants at the border. He continued to copy information related to counterterrorism efforts.

The Norm Of Selectivity In Leak Prosecutions

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he case against FBI whistleblower Terry Albury is one of a handful of prominent leak cases the Justice Department has prosecuted under President Donald Trump.

NSA whistleblower Reality Winner received the longest sentence ever for an unauthorized disclosure and pled guilty to violating the Espionage Act when she released an NSA report on alleged Russian hacking of voter registration systems during the 2016 presidential election.

Former Senate intelligence committee security director James Wolfe pled guilty to lying to FBI agents when they questioned him about his disclosure of unclassified information to reporters. He denied talking to journalists about Senate plans to have Trump campaign adviser Carter Page testify before the committee.

On October 16, as Josh Gerstein reported, Natalie Edwards, an employee of the U.S. Treasury Department, was charged with multiple offenses for allegedly disclosing “a large volume of confidential financial reports, including information related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation” into the 2016 Trump campaign.

But of the aforementioned cases, only Albury and Winner were charged with violating the Espionage Act.

Albury’s defense attorneys argued Albury’s disclosures on the FBI’s “abuses” of its “enormous investigative authority” granted after the September 11 attacks did not deserve punishment. Particularly, rules governing classified information make clear that an agency is not supposed to classify information to “conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error” or to “prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency.”

They argued the Espionage Act was intended for spies and was never supposed to be an Official Secrets Act that could be used to punish government officials without considering their motives or the intent behind their release of classified information.

David Petraeus benefited big time from the double standard. Curiously, the lurid, usually jingoist NYC tabloids showed little mercy to the bemedaled hero.

Albury’s attorneys also invoked the double standard for whistleblowers who embarrass government and cited the case of former CIA director David Petraeus, who pled guilty to a misdemeanor and served no time in prison even though he released highly classified material to his biographer—a woman he was having an affair with—and lied to the FBI about it.

Comey conceded in his book, “A Higher Loyalty,” that this was a “double standard based on class,” and, “A poor person, an unknown person—say a young black Baptist minister from Richmond—would be charged with a felony and sent to jail.”

Another example where a disclosure went unpunished is the case of retired Marine Corps general James Cartwright. He disclosed information to the New York Times about the Stuxnet virus that was used by the U.S. in cyber warfare against Iran. He lied to the FBI during their investigation. Before sentencing, he was pardoned.

Further revealing is how the CIA recently asserted in court that it has “the right to disclose classified information to selected journalists and then to withhold the same information from others under the Freedom of Information Act.”

The CIA wrote, that “[t]he Court’s supposition that a limited disclosure of information to three journalists necessarily equates to a disclosure to the public at large is legally and factually mistaken.”

“Selectivity in disclosure, prosecution, and punishment is the norm in the intelligence community,” Albury’s defense attorneys argued. “Albury’s sentence will not rectify that problem.”

Nonetheless, prosecutors insisted Albury’s attorneys could not make comparisons between cases of disclosures to the press because each case has its own set of “unique” challenges.

“Each of these cases present a different tension between the prosecutorial and intelligence interests at stake,” the government’s sentencing memo contended. “Further, when such cases are resolved through guilty pleas, many of the facts underlying those pleas remain classified. Thus, making comparisons between cases based on publicly available information is of little utility.”

As is typical, the government insisted in its sentencing memo that Albury’s motive was irrelevant but proceeded to argue he had no “benign motive.” The documents detailed no “abuse” whatsoever.

Prosecutors requested a 52-month sentence for two offenses that stemmed from the disclosure of several documents published by the Intercept. It was a shorter sentence than what prosecutors requested for Winner, who released only one document.

There is hardly any consistency when it comes to the government’s war on whistleblowers, but it does not matter. Prosecutors are arbitrary and impulsive, driven as much by the political climate as they are by their desire to see the system deliver retribution.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kevin GosztolaKevin Gosztola is managing editor of Shadowproof Press. He also produces and co-hosts the weekly podcast, "Unauthorized Disclosure."

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ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

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Things to ponder

While our media prostitutes, many Hollywood celebs, and politicians and opinion shapers make so much noise about the still to be demonstrated damage done by the Russkies to our nonexistent democracy, this is what the sanctimonious US government has done overseas just since the close of World War 2. And this is what we know about. Many other misdeeds are yet to be revealed or documented.

Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found

In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” — acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump — a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report

 



The Path to World War III

Risky Israeli behavior threatens everyone

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he minimal U.S. press coverage accorded to last Monday’s shooting down of a Russian intelligence plane off the coast of Syria is, of course, a reflection both of lack of interest and of Israel’s involvement in the incident. If one had read the New York Times or the Washington Post on the morning after the shoot-down or watched the morning network news it would have been easy to miss the story altogether.

The corporate media’s desire to sustain established foreign policy narratives while also protecting Israel at all costs is as much a feature of American television news as are the once every five minutes commercials from big pharma urging the public to take medications for diseases that no one has ever heard of.

Israel is, of course, claiming innocence, that it was the Syrians who shot down the Russian aircraft while the Israeli jets were legitimately targeting a Syrian army facility “from which weapons-manufacturing systems were supposed to be transferred to Iran and Hezbollah.” Seeking to undo some of the damage caused, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly telephoned Russian President Vladimir Putin to express his condolences. He also sent his air force chief to Russia on Thursday to provide a detailed report on what had occurred from the Israeli perspective.

But that story, however it will be spun, is inevitably only part of the tale. The narrative of what occurred is by now well established. The Russian aircraft was returning to base after a mission over the Mediterranean off the Syrian coast monitoring the activities of a French warship and at least one British RAF plane. As a large and relatively slow propeller driven aircraft on a routine intelligence gathering mission, the Ilyushin 20 had no reason to conceal its presence. It was apparently preparing to land at its airbase at Khmeimim in Syria when the incident took place. It may or may not have had its transponder on, which would signal to the Syrian air defenses that it was a “friendly.”

Syrian air defenses were on high alert because Israel had attacked targets near Damascus on the previous day. On that occasion a Boeing 747 on the ground that Israel claimed was transporting weapons was the target. One should note in passing that Israeli claims about what it is targeting in Syria are never independently verifiable.

The Israelis for their part were using four F-16 fighter bombers to stage a surprise night attack on several sites near Latakia, close to the airbase being used by the Russians. They came in from the Mediterranean Sea and clearly were using the Russian plane to mask their approach as the Ilyushin 20 would have presented a much larger radar profile for the air defenses. The radar systems on the F-16s would also have clearly seen the Russian plane.

The Israelis might have been expecting that the Syrians would not fire at all at the incoming planes knowing that one of them at least was being flown by their Russian allies. If that was the expectation, it proved wrong and it was indeed a Syrian S-200 ground to air missile directed by its guidance system to the larger target that brought down the plane and killed its fourteen crew members. The Israelis completed their bombing run and flew back home. There were also reports that the French frigate offshore fired several missiles during the exchange, but they have not been confirmed while the British plane was also reportedly circling out of range though within the general area.

There was also a back story. The Israelis and Russian military had established a hotline, similar to the one that is used with the U.S. command in Syria, precisely intended to avoid incidents like the Ilyushin shoot-down that might escalate into a more major conflict. Israel reportedly used the line but only one minute before the incident took place, leaving no time for the Russian plane to take evasive action.

The Russian Ministry of Defense was irate. It saw the exploitation of the intelligence plane by the Israelis as a deliberate high-risk initiative. It warned “We consider these provocative actions by Israel as hostile. Fifteen Russian military service members have died because of the irresponsible actions of the Israeli military. This is absolutely contrary to the spirit of the Russian-Israeli partnership. We reserve the right for an adequate response.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin was more conciliatory, saying the incident was a “chain of tragic circumstances.” He contrasted it with the Turkish shoot-down of a Russian warplane in 2015, which was planned and deliberate, noting that Israel had not actually attacked the Ilyushin. Though the Putin comments clearly recognize that his country’s relationship with Israel is delicate to say the least, that does not mean that he will do nothing.

Many Israelis are emigres from Russia and there are close ties between the two countries, but their views on Syria diverge considerably. As much as Putin might like to strike back at Israel in a hard, substantive way, he will likely only upgrade and strengthen the air defenses around Russian troop concentrations and warn that another “surprise” attack will be resisted. Unfortunately, he knows that he is substantially outgunned locally by the U.S., France, Britain and Israel, not to mention Turkey, and a violent response that would escalate the conflict is not in his interest. He has similarly, in cooperation with his Syrian allies, delayed a major attempt to retake terrorist controlled Idlib province, as he works out a formula with Ankara to prevent heavy handed Turkish intervention.

But there is another dimension to the story that the international media has largely chosen to ignore. And that is that Israel is now carrying out almost daily air attacks on Syria, over 200 in the past 18 months, a country with which it is not at war and which has not attacked it or threatened it in any way. It justifies the attacks by claiming that they are directed against Iran or Hezbollah, not at Syria itself. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that any peace settlement in Syria include the complete removal of Iranians, a demand that has also been repeated by the United States, which is also calling for the end to the Bashar al-Assad government and its replacement by something more “democratic.”

Aggressive war directed at a non-threatening country is the ultimate war crime as defined by the Nuremberg Tribunals that followed after the Second World War, yet the United States and its poodles Britain and France have not so much as squeaked when Israel kills civilians and soldiers in its surprise attacks against targets that it alone frequently claims to be linked to the Iranians. Washington would not be in much of a position to cast the first stone anyway, as it is in Syria illegally, bombs targets regularly, to include two major cruise missile strikes, and, on at least one occasion, set a trap that reportedly succeeded in killing a large number of Russian mercenaries fighting on the Syrian government side.

And then there is the other dimension of Israeli interference with its neighbors, the secret wars in which it supports the terrorist groups operating in Syria as well as in Iran. The Netanyahu government has armed the terrorists operating in Syria and even treated them in Israeli hospitals when they get wounded. On one occasion when ISIS accidentally fired into Israeli-held territory on the Golan Heights it subsequently apologized. So, if you ask who is supporting terrorism the answer first and foremost should be Israel, but Israel pays no price for doing so because of the protection afforded by Washington, which, by the way, is also protecting terrorists.

There is, of course, an alternative explanation for the Israeli action. Netanyahu might have considered it all a win-win either way, with the Russian plane masking and enabling the Israeli attack without consequence for Israel or, perversely, producing an incident inviting retaliation from Moscow, which would likely lead to a shooting war with the United States after it inevitably steps in to support Israel’s government. In either case, the chaos in Syria that Israel desires would continue and even worsen but there would also be the potential danger of a possible expansion of the war as a consequence, making it regional or even broader.

It’s the same old story. Israel does risky things like attacking its neighbors because it knows it will pay no price due to Washington’s support. The downing of the Russian plane through Israeli contrivance created a situation that could easily have escalated into a war involving Moscow and Washington. What Israel is really thinking when it seeks to create anarchy all around its borders is anyone’s guess, but it is, to be sure, in no one’s interest to allow the process to continue. It is past time for Donald Trump to fulfill his campaign promise to pull the plug on American engagement in Syria and terminate the seemingly endless cycle of wars in the Middle East.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website  is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

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 CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

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Degeneracy and Fundamentalism of Western Media Control

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. BREAKING THE EMPIRE'S MEDIA MONOPOLY IS UP TO YOU.

SAA soldiers with flag

Dedicated to ‘my’ magazine, NEO.

su_dropcap style="light" size="4"]T[/su_dropcap]here is nothing sadder and more pathetic, than a notorious liar shouting, spitting saliva, insulting normal people left and right, while terrorizing those who are telling the truth.

Lately, the West has gone clearly berserk. The more it is scared of losing control over the brains of billions of people in all corners of the world, the more aggressively it is screaming, kicking and making a fool of itself.

It doesn’t even hide its intentions, anymore. The intentions are clear: to destroy all of its opponents, be they in Russia, China, Iran or in any other patriotic and independent-minded state. To silence all the media outlets that are speaking the truth; not the truth as it is defined in London, Washington, Paris or Berlin, but the truth as it is perceived in Moscow, Beijing, Caracas or Teheran; the truth that simply serves the people, not the fake, pseudo-truth fabricated in order to uphold the supremacy of the Western Empire.

Huge funds are now being allocated for the mortal propaganda onslaught, originating predominantly in both London and Washington. Millions of pounds and dollars have been allocated and spent, officially and openly, in order to ‘counter’ the voices of Russian, Chinese, Arab, Iranian and Latin American people; voices that are finally reaching ‘the Others’ – the desolate inhabitants of the ‘global south’, the dwellers of the colonies and neo-colonies; the modern-day slaves living in the ‘client’ states.

The mask is falling down and the gangrenous face of Western propaganda is being exposed. It is awful, frightening, but at least it is what it is, for everyone to see. No more suspense, no surprises. It is all suddenly out in the open. It is frightening but honest. This is our world. This is how low our humanity has sunk. This is the so-called world order, or more precisely, neo-colonialism.

*

The West knows how to slaughter millions, and it knows how to manipulate masses. Its propaganda has always been tough (and repeated a thousand times, not unlike corporate advertisements or the WWII fascist indoctrination campaigns) when it originates in the United States, or brilliantly Machiavellian and lethally effective when coming from the United Kingdom. Let us never forget: the U.K. has been murdering and enslaving hundreds of millions of innocent and much more advanced human beings, for many long centuries and all over the world. Due to its talent in brainwashing and manipulating the masses, Great Britain has been getting away with countless genocides, robberies and even managing to convince the world that it should be respected and allowed to retain both a moral mandate and the seat at the U.N. Security Council.

The Western regime knows how to lie, shamelessly but professionally, and above all, perpetually. There are thousands of lies piling up on top of each other, delivered with perfect upper-class ‘educated’ accents: lies about Salisbury, about Communism, Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, Syria, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, South Africa, Libya, refugees. There are lies about the past, present and even about the future.

Nobody is laughing, seeing such imperialist thugs like the U.K. and France preaching, all over the world and with straight face, about both freedom and human rights. Not laughing, yet. But many are slowly getting outraged.

People in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America are beginning to realize that they have been fooled, cheated, lied to; that the so called ‘education’ and ‘information’ coming from the West have been nothing else other than shameless indoctrination campaigns. For years I worked on all continents, compiling stories and testimonies about the crimes of imperialism, and about the awakening of the world, ‘summarized’ in my 840-page book: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”.

Millions can now see, for the first time, that media outlets such as BBC, DW, CNN, Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, have been encoding them mercilessly and thoroughly, for years and decades. Reuters, AP, AFP and several other Western press agencies, have managed to create a uniformed narrative for the entire planet, with local newspapers everywhere in the world now publishing identical fabrications that originate from Washington, London, Paris and other Western capitals. Totally false pictures about such important subjects as the Soviet Union, Communism, China, but also freedom and democracy, have been engraved into billions of human brains.

The main reason for the opening of the eyes of people of the world which is still oppressed by Western imperialism, is, the relentless work of media outlets such as the Russian-based New Eastern Outlook (NEO), RT and Sputnik, as China-based CGTN, China Radio International and China Daily, Venezuela-based TeleSur, Lebanese Al-Mayadeen, and Iranian Press TV. Of course, there are many other proud and determined anti-imperialist media outlets in various parts of the world, but the above-mentioned ones are the most important vehicles of the counter-propaganda coming from the countries that fought for their freedom and simply refused to be conquered, colonized, prostituted and brainwashed by the West.

One mighty anti-imperialist coalition of truly independent states has been forming and solidifying. It is now inspiring billions of oppressed human beings everywhere on Earth, giving them hope, promising a better, optimistic and just future. Standing at the vanguard of many positive changes and expectations is the ‘new media’.

And the West is watching, horrified, desperate and increasingly vitriolic. It is willing to destroy, to kill and to crush, just in order to stop this wave of ‘dangerous optimism’ and strive for true independence and freedom.

*

There are now constant attacks against the new media of the free world. In the West, RT is being threatened with expulsion, brilliant and increasingly popular New Eastern Outlook (NEO) came just recently under vicious cyber-attack from, most likely, professional Western hackers. TeleSur is periodically crippled by sanctions shamefully unleashed against Venezuela, and the same banditry is targeting Iranian Press TV.

You see, the West may be responsible for billions of ruined lives everywhere in the world, but it is still faces no sanctions, no punitive actions. While countries like Russia, Iran, China, Cuba, DPRK or Venezuela have to ‘face consequences’ mainly in the form of embargoes, sanctions, propaganda, direct intimidation, even military bullying, simply for refusing to accept the insane Western global dictatorship, and for choosing their own form of the government and political as well as economic system.

The West simply doesn’t seem to be able to tolerate dissent. It requires full and unconditional obedience, an absolute submission. It acts as both religious fundamentalist and a global thug. And to make things worse, its citizens appear to be so programmed or so indifferent or both, that they are not capable of comprehending what their countries and their ‘culture’ are doing to the rest of the world.

*

When being interviewed, I am often asked: “is the world facing real danger of WWIII?”

I always reply “yes”. It is because it appears that both North America and Europe are unable to stop forcing the world into obedience and to virtual slavery. They appear to be unwilling to accept any rational and democratic arrangement on our Planet. Would they sacrifice one, tens or hundreds of millions of human beings, just in order to retain control over the universe? Definitely they would! They already have, on several occasions, without thinking twice, with no regret and no mercy.

The gamble of the Western fundamentalists is that the rest of the world is so much more decent and much less brutal, that it could not stomach yet another war, another carnage, another bloodbath; that it rather surrenders, rather gives up all its dreams for a much better future, instead of fighting and defending itself against what increasingly appears to be an inevitable Western military attack.

*

Such calculations and ‘hopes’ of the Western fanatics are false. Countries that are now being confronted and intimidated are well aware what to expect if they give up and surrender to Western insanity and imperialist designs.

People know, they remember what it is like to be enslaved.

Russia under Yeltsin, collapsed, being plundered by Western corporations, being spat at, in the face, by the European and North American governments; its life expectancy dropped to sub-Saharan African levels.

China survived unimaginable agony of “humiliation period’, being ransacked, plundered and divided by French, British and the U.S. invaders.

Iran robbed of its legitimate and socialist government, having to live under a sadistic maniac, the Western puppet, the Shah.

The entire ‘Latin’ America, with its open veins, with ruined culture, with Western religion forced down its throat; with literally all democratically-elected socialist and Communist governments and leaders either overthrown, or directly murdered, or at least manipulated out of power by Washington and its lackeys.

North Korea, survivor of a beastly genocide against its civilians, committed by the U.S. and its allies in the so-called Korean War.

Vietnam and Laos, raped and humiliated by the French, and then bombed to the stone ages by the U.S. and its allies.

South Africa… East Timor… Cambodia…

There are living carcasses, decomposing horrid wrecks, left after the Western deadly ‘liberating’ embraces: Libya and Iraq, Afghanistan and Honduras, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, to name just a few. These are serving as warnings to those who still have some illusions left about the Western ‘good will’ and spirit of justice!

Syria… Oh Syria! Just look what the West has done to a proud and beautiful country which refused to fall on its knees and lick Washington’s and London’s feet. But also, look how strong, how determined those who truly love their country can be. Against all odds, Syria stood up, it fought foreign-backed terrorists, and it won, surrounded and supported by the great internationalist coalition! The West thought it was triggering yet another Libyan scenario, but instead, it encountered an iron fist, nerves of steel, another Stalingrad. Fascism was identified, confronted and stopped. At an enormous cost, but stopped!

The entire Middle East is watching.

The entire world is watching.

People now see and they remember. They are beginning to remember clearly what happened to them. They are starting to understand. They are emboldened. They clearly comprehend that slavery is not the only way to live their lives.

*

The Anti-Western or more precisely, anti-imperialist coalition is now solid like steel. Because it is one great coalition of victims, of people who know what rape is and what plunder is, and what thorough destruction is. They know precisely what is administered by the self-proclaimed champions of freedom and democracy – by the Western cultural and economic fundamentalism.

This coalition of independent and proud nations is here to protect itself, to protect each other, as well as the rest of the world.

It will never surrender, never back up. Because the people have spoken and they are sending clear messages to their leaders: “Never again! Do not capitulate. Do not yield to the Western intimidations. We will fight if attacked. And we will stand, proudly, on our own feet, no matter what, no matter what brutal force we have to face. Never on our knees, comrades! We will never again fall to our knees in front of those who are spreading terror!”

And the media in these wonderful countries that are resisting Western imperialism and terror is spreading countless optimistic and brave messages.

And the Western establishing is watching and shaking and soiling its pants.

It knows the end of its brutal rule over the world is approaching. It knows those days of impunity are ending. It knows the world will soon judge the West, for the centuries of crimes it has been committing against humanity.

It knows that the media war will be won by ‘us’, not by ‘them’.

The battlefield is being defined. With some bright exceptions, the Westerners and their media outlets are closing ranks, sticking to their masters. Like several other writers, I had been unceremoniously kicked out from Counterpunch, one of the increasingly anti-Communist, anti-Russian, anti-Syrian and anti-Chinese U.S.-based publications. From their point of view, I was writing for several ‘wrong’ publications. I am actually proud that they stopped publishing me. I am fine where I am: facing them, as I am facing other mass-circulation media outlets of the West.

The extent of Western ideological control of the world is degenerate, truly perverse. Its media and ‘educational’ outlets are fully at the service of the regime.

But the world is waking up and confronting this deadly cultural and political fundamentalism.

A great ideological battle is on. These are exciting, bright times. Nothing could be worse than slavery. Chains are being broken. From now on, there will be no impunity for those who have been torturing the world for centuries.

Their lies, as well as their armor, will be confronted and stopped! 

About the Author
 Andre Vltchek is philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He’s a creator of Vltchek’s World in Word and Images, a writer of revolutionary novel Aurora and several other books. He writes especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”
https://journal-neo.org/2018/04/08/degeneracy-and-fundamentalism-of-western-media-control/ [/su_box]

 

Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found

In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” -- acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump -- a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report 



The Illegality Of NATO

The author’s warnings about NATO in exacerbating the probability of world war have been proven by the role played by this insidious organisation in the recent Western-manufactured wave of russophobia, which shows no signs of abatement. 

The US continues to beef up the NATO air force and other branches.

The US continues to beef up the NATO air force and other branches.

By John Scales Avery

Violation of the UN Charter and the Nuremberg Principles

FIRST PUBLISHED ON MAY 26, 2014
Countercurrents.org
THIS IS A REPOST

In recent years, participation in NATO has made European countries accomplices in US efforts to achieve global hegemony by means of military force, in violation of international law, and especially in violation of the UN Charter, the Nuremberg Principles.

Former UN Assistant Secretary General Hans Christof von Sponeck used the following words to express his opinion that NATO now violates the UN Charter and international law: “In the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty, the Charter of the United Nations was declared to be NATO’s legally binding framework. However, the United-Nations monopoly of the use of force, especially as specified in Article 51 of the Charter, was no longer accepted according to the 1999 NATO doctrine. NATO’s territorial scope, until then limited to the Euro-Atlantic region, was expanded by its members to include the whole world”

Article 2 of the UN Charter requires that “All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” This requirement is somewhat qualified by Article 51, which says that “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.”

Thus, in general, war is illegal under the UN Charter. Self-defense against an armed attack is permitted, but only for a limited time, until the Security Council has had time to act. The United Nations Charter does not permit the threat or use of force in preemptive wars, or to produce regime changes, or for so-called “democratization”, or for the domination of regions that are rich in oil. NATO must not be a party to the threat or use of force for such illegal purposes.

In 1946, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously affirmed “the principles of international law recognized by the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and the judgment of the Tribunal”. The General Assembly also established an International Law Commission to formalize the Nuremberg Principles. The result was a list that included Principles VI and VII, which are particularly important in the context of the illegality of NATO:

Principle VI: The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:

a Crimes against peace: (I) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances; (ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (I).

b War crimes: Violations of the laws and customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destructions of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity

c. Crimes against humanity: Atrocities and offenses, including but not limited to murder, extermination, deportation, imprisonment, torture, rape or other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, whether or not in violation of the laws of the country where perpetrated

ci.
cii. Principle VII: Complicity in the commission of a crime against the peace, a war crime or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI as a crime against international law.

Robert H. Jackson, who was the chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, said that “To initiate a war of aggression is therefore not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime, differing from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

Violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty

At present, NATO’s nuclear weapons policies violate both the spirit and the text of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in several respects: Today there are an estimated 200 US nuclear weapons still in Europe The air forces of the nations in which they are based are regularly trained to deliver the US weapons. This “nuclear sharing”, as it is called, violates Articles I and II of the NPT, which forbid the transfer of nuclear weapons to non-nuclear-weapon states. It has been argued that the NPT would no longer be in force if a crisis arose, but there is nothing in the NPT saying that the treaty would not hold under all circumstances.

Article VI of the NPT requires states possessing nuclear weapon to get rid of them within a reasonable period of time. This article is violated by fact that NATO policy is guided by a Strategic Concept, which visualizes the continued use of nuclear weapons in the foreseeable future.’

The principle of no-first-use of nuclear weapons has been an extremely important safeguard over the years, but it is violated by present NATO policy, which permits the first-use of nuclear weapons in a wide variety of circumstances.

Must Europe really be dragged into a potentially catastrophic war with Russia?

At present the United States government is trying to force the European members of NATO to participate in aggressive operations in connection with the coup which it carried out in Ukraine. Europe must refuse. See the following link:

https://www.transcend.org/tms/2014/04/natos-aggression-against-russia-and-the-danger-of-war-in-europe/

The hubris, and reckless irresponsibility of the US government in risking a catastrophic war with Russia is almost beyond belief, but the intervention in Ukraine is only one in a long series of US interventions:

During the period from 1945 to the present, the US interfered, militarily or covertly, in the internal affairs of a large number of nations: China, 1945-49; Italy, 1947-48; Greece, 1947-49; Philippines, 1946-53; South Korea, 1945-53; Albania, 1949-53; Germany, 1950s; Iran, 1953; Guatemala, 1953-1990s; Middle East, 1956-58; Indonesia, 1957-58; British Guiana/Guyana, 1953-64; Vietnam, 1950-73; Cambodia, 1955-73; The Congo/Zaire, 1960-65; Brazil, 1961-64; Dominican Republic, 1963-66; Cuba, 1959-present; Indonesia, 1965; Chile, 1964-73; Greece, 1964-74; East Timor, 1975-present; Nicaragua, 1978-89; Grenada, 1979-84; Libya, 1981-89; Panama, 1989; Iraq, 1990-present; Afghanistan 1979-92; El Salvador, 1980-92; Haiti, 1987-94; Yugoslavia, 1999; and Afghanistan, 2001-present, Syria, 2013-present. Egypt, 2013-present.

Most of these interventions were explained to the American people as being necessary to combat communism (or more recently, terrorism), but an underlying motive was undoubtedly the desire of the ruling oligarchy to put in place governments and laws that would be favorable to the economic interests of the US and its allies. Also, the military-industrial complex needs justification for the incredibly bloated military budgets that drain desperately needed resources from social and environmental projects.

Do the people of Europe really want to participate in the madness of aggression against Russia? Of course not! What about European leaders? Why don’t they follow the will of the people and free Europe from bondage to the United States? Have our leaders been bribed? Or have they been blackmailed through personal secrets, discovered by the long arm of NSA spying?


 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
 John Avery received a B.Sc. in theoretical physics from MIT and an M.Sc. from the University of Chicago. He later studied theoretical chemistry at the University of London, and was awarded a Ph.D. there in 1965. He is now Lektor Emeritus, Associate Professor, at the Department of Chemistry, University of Copenhagen. Fellowships, memberships in societies: Since 1990 he has been the Contact Person in Denmark for Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. In 1995, this group received the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts. He was the Member of the Danish Peace Commission of 1998. Technical Advisor, World Health Organization, Regional Office for Europe (1988- 1997). Chairman of the Danish Peace Academy, April 2004. http://www.fredsakademiet.dk/ordbog/aord/a220.htm. He can be reached at avery.john.s@gmail.com