Likely, it will only be a matter time before the CIA editors at Wikipedia will change the recently updated information in the above (cropped-enlarged screenshot) Wikipedia article last updated 4 April 2018:
“Erdem also claims that sarin-gas was transported through Turkey to Syria, later used in the Ghouta chemical attack in 2013,[4][5] as well as later ISIL-attacks against civilians.[6] Erdem showed before the parliament a case where investigations leading to the arrest of 13 potential Turkish ISIL-members were made, but later inexplicably dropped.[7][8]
“Erdem faces treason charges in Turkey for his leaks.[5]“
What is Turkish Member of Parliament Eren Erdem on record as having stated? Speaking of a copy in his possession of the Adana Prosecutor’s criminal case 2013/120 that was quashed by Erdogan’s people:
“There is data in this indictment. Chemical weapon materials are being brought to Turkey and being put together in Syria in camps of ISIS which was known as Iraqi Al Qaeda during that time
“These are all detected. There are phone recordings of this shipment like ‘don’t worry about the border, we’ll take care of it’ and we also see the bureaucracy is being used
“About the shipment, Republic prosecutor of Adana, Mehmet Arıkan, made an operation and the related people were detained. But as far as I understand he was not an influential person in bureaucracy. A week after, another public prosecutor was assigned, took over the indictment and all the detainees were released. And they left Turkey crossing the Syrian border
“The phone recordings in the indictment showed all the details from how the shipment was going to be made to how it was prepared, from the content of the labs to the source of the materials. Which trucks were going to be used, all dates etc. From A to Z, everything was discussed and recorded. Despite all of this evidence, the suspects were released
“And the shipment happened, because no one stopped them. That’s why maybe the sarin gas used in Syria is a result of this
“When I read the indictment, I saw clearly that these people have relationships with The Machinery and Chemical Industry Institution of Turkey and they don’t have any worries about crossing the border
“For example in Hayyam Kasap’s phone records, you hear him saying sarin gas many times, saying that the ateliers are ready for production, materials are waiting in trucks which were supposedly carrying club soda
“For example the chemical attack in Ghouta. Remember. It was claimed that the regime forces were behind it. This attack was conducted just days before the sarin operation in Turkey
“It’s a high probability that this attack was carried out with those basic materials shipped through Turkey. It is said the regime forces are responsible but the indictment says it’s ISIS. UN inspectors went to the site but they couldn’t find any evidence. But in this indictment, we’ve found the evidence. We know who used the sarin gas, and our government knows it too
“All basic materials are purchased from Europe. Western institutions should question themselves about these relations. Western sources know very well who carried out the sarin gas attack in Syria. They know these people, they know who these people are working with, they know that these people are working for Al-Qaeda. I think is Westerns are hypocrites about the situation”
What more can be known?
1) The German Parliament’s leadership (all political parties), as well the German Federal Prosecutor, had been apprised of the preceding by yours truly on 2 December 2015:
Dear Members of the German Parliament
I wish to draw attention to recent information regarding your NATO ally Turkey. Last month it had been revealed by two courageous members of Turkey’s parliament that in fact it was Turkey’s federal intelligence services were behind the August 2013 Sarin gas attack, killing more than one thousand ordinary Syrians, an attack NATO nations had blamed on the regime of Basher al-Assad. Your own Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) should have been aware of this fact from very nearly the beginning, as they have been proactively engaged in Syria and the Syrian conflict, as well as spying on Turkey.
What’s more is, state actor Turkey initiating the Sarin attack is not some undocumented allegation. As you can see from the attached reporting, there was a proper investigation by Turkish authorities with developed evidence and indictments. I regret to inform you in this case, President Erdogan personally initiated the prosecution that last week saw the editor of the newspaper reporting put in jail.
This raises strong questions of possible BND criminal complicity considering Germany’s support for certain NATO nations directly in relation to the Syrian conflict. What did the BND know and when? Has the BND, when passing intelligence on Syria to Assad’s opposition through its NATO allies, supported the actors who gassed the Syrians? Is Germany’s supportive relationship to the Erdogan government a lawful one, in light of this evidence? Has the BND contributed to the geopolitical disinformation blaming Assad for the August 2013 Sarin attack? Has your parliament been deceived in this matter, particularly your intelligence oversight committee?
Clearly the Sarin case, considering Germany, as a knowledgeable or complicit actor in Syria, should be pursued against the Turkey via the legal mechanism of Völkerstrafgesetzbuch, as well as domestic prosecutions of those German officials, noting the BND particularly, who’ve failed in their reporting requirements and/or conspired to conceal a war crime or crime against humanity.
These should be questions and demand you will present to the federal prosecutor.
Ron West
2) Germany’s foreign intelligence service (BND) lied to the German parliament’s intelligence oversight committee:
(Translated, highlighted text) “Berlin – The Federal Intelligence Service (BND) supports the assessment of the Americans that the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is behind the poison gas attacks on suburbs of Damascus on 21 August.In secret classified statements for security politicians, BND President Gerhard Schindler said a clear proof is missing.After an in-depth plausibility analysis, however, his ministry assumes that the regime is the culprit”
[T]he country’s foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), agrees with the US position which holds Syrian President Bashar Assad responsible for the poison gas attacks near Damascus on Aug. 21. In a secret briefing to select lawmakers on Monday, BND head Gerhard Schindler said that while there is still no incontestable proof, analysis of the evidence at hand has led his intelligence service to believe that Assad’s regime is to blame.
In the briefing, Schindler said that only the Assad regime is in possession of binary chemical weapons such as sarin. The BND believes that regime experts would be the only ones capable of manufacturing such weapons and deploying them with small missiles. The BND believes that such weapons had been used several times prior to the attack on Aug. 21, which is believed to have killed more than 1,400 people
3) We can know BND knew better because of intelligence officers who were too stupid to keep their mouths shut. In fact BND is not only competent in Syria, BND is dedicated to the overthrow of Assad:
The report quotes a US intelligence agent as saying: “No Western intelligence service has as good sources in Syria as the BND does.”
A member of the BND told the newspaper that the intelligence service was “proud of the important contribution [it] is making to the overthrow of the Assad regime.” The official was not named in the report
What will be known is, this is all information had been put before German parliamentarians and has been in their possession for the past two years, even as Angela Merkel parrots the intelligence agencies “Assad did it” no matter Assad didn’t do it, has never done it.
What is ugly is, German politicians whose cowardice is so great (unlike the courageous Turkish Member of Parliament Eren Erdem) they accept being lied to by their own intelligence agency while keeping their mouths shut and sitting on their hands as NATO nations provoke Russia to war over Syria:
^ Palace of Cowards ^
And, let’s not forget the sarin gas precursor chemicals were originally sourced or originated IN EUROPE, prior to transiting Turkey via a NATO nation’s intelligence agency (with complicity of intelligence agencies, plural, BND has covered this up), and delivered into the hands of al Qaida & Islamic State.
What should this covering up facts of a crime of poison gas recall? Angela Merkel’s political party’s origins with Adenauer welcoming Nazis into the Christian Democrats’ ranks? The BND founded by the CIA’s rehabilitation of major war criminal Reinhard Gehlen? Is it true Germany has never shed certain Nazi spots? One would expect Die Linke (The Left) should stand up to this. Will you hear me now Gregor Gysi?
A former Special Forces Sergeant of Operations and Intelligence, Ronald Thomas West is a retired paralegal/investigator (living in exile) whose work focus had been anti-corruption and human rights. Ronald is published in International Law as a layman (The Mueller-Wilson Report, co-authored with Dr Mark D Cole) and has been adjunct professor of American Constitutional Law at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany (for English credit, summer semester 2008.) Ronald’s formal educational background is primarily social psychology.
You are welcome to copy and paste this letter to the German political party Die Linke as well as the International Criminal Court and email it to these addresses:
international@die-linke.de
sonja.giese@die-linke.de
fraktion@linksfraktion.de
gregor.gysi@bundestag.de
OTP.InformationDesk@icc-cpi.int
Dear Members of Die Linke & International Criminal Court
With news of the 7 April 2018 false-flag, alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria, I wish to draw your attention to these following, unanswered questions, pending in German Federal parliament for more than two years; as finally demanding answers is preferable to the UK-USA-NATO provoking war with Russia.
Thank you and sincerely
(your name here)
Original information provided to members of the Bundestag, presented in December, 2015 by Ronald Thomas West:
I wish to draw attention to recent information regarding your NATO ally Turkey. It had been revealed by two courageous members of Turkey’s parliament that in fact it was Turkey’s federal intelligence services were behind the August 2013 Ghouta, Syria sarin gas attack, killing more than one thousand three hundred ordinary Syrians, an attack NATO nations had blamed on the regime of Basher al-Assad. Your own Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) intelligence agency should have been aware of this fact from very nearly the beginning, as they have been proactively engaged in Syria and the Syrian conflict, as well as spying on Turkey.
This raises strong questions of possible BND criminal complicity considering Germany’s support for certain NATO nations directly in relation to the Syrian conflict.
What did the BND know and when?
Has the BND, when passing intelligence on Syria to Assad’s opposition through its NATO allies, supported the actors who gassed the Syrians?
Is Germany’s supportive relationship to the Erdogan government a lawful one, in light of this recent evidence?
Has the BND contributed to the geopolitical disinformation blaming Assad for the August 2013 Sarin attack?
Has your parliament been deceived in this matter, particularly your intelligence oversight committee?
Clearly the Sarin case, considering Germany, as a knowledgeable or complicit actor in Syria, should be pursued against the culpable officials in Turkey via the legal mechanism of Völkerstrafgesetzbuch (universal jurisdiction), as well as domestic prosecutions of those German officials, noting the BND particularly, who’ve failed in their reporting requirements and/or conspired to conceal a war crime or crime against humanity.
These should be questions and demand you will present to the federal prosecutor.
Two deputies from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) have claimed that the government is against investigating Turkey’s role in sending toxic sarin gas which was used in an attack on civilians in Syria in 2013 and in which over 1,300 Syrians were killed.
CHP deputies Eren Erdem and Ali Şeker held a press conference in İstanbul on Wednesday in which they claimed the investigation into allegations regarding Turkey’s involvement in the procurement of sarin gas which was used in the chemical attack on a civil population and delivered to the terrorist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to enable the attack was derailed.
Taking the floor first, Erdem stated that the Adana Chief Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation into allegations that sarin was sent to Syria from Turkey via several businessmen. An indictment followed regarding the accusations targeting the government.
“The MKE [Turkish Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation] is also an actor that is mentioned in the investigation file. Here is the indictment. All the details about how sarin was procured in Turkey and delivered to the terrorists, along with audio recordings, are inside the file,” Erdem said while waving the file.
Erdem also noted that the prosecutor’s office conducted detailed technical surveillance and found that an al-Qaeda militant, Hayyam Kasap, acquired sarin, adding: “Wiretapped phone conversations reveal the process of procuring the gas at specific addresses as well as the process of procuring the rockets that would fire the capsules containing the toxic gas. However, despite such solid evidence there has been no arrest in the case. Thirteen individuals were arrested during the first stage of the investigation but were later released, refuting government claims that it is fighting terrorism,” Erdem noted.
Over 1,300 people were killed in the sarin gas attack in Ghouta and several other neighborhoods near the Syrian capital of Damascus, with the West quickly blaming the regime of Bashar al-Assad and Russia claiming it was a “false flag” operation aimed at making US military intervention in Syria possible.
Suburbs near Damascus were struck by rockets containing the toxic sarin gas in August 2013.
The purpose of the attack was allegedly to provoke a US military operation in Syria which would topple the Assad regime in line with the political agenda of then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his government.
CHP deputy Şeker spoke after Erdem, pointing out that the government misled the public on the issue by asserting that sarin was provided by Russia. The purpose was to create the perception that, according to Şeker, “Assad killed his people with sarin and that requires a US military intervention in Syria.”
He also underlined that all of the files and evidence from the investigation show a war crime was committed within the borders of the Turkish Republic.
“The investigation clearly indicates that those people who smuggled the chemicals required to procure sarin faced no difficulties, proving that Turkish intelligence was aware of their activities. While these people had to be in prison for their illegal acts, not a single person is in jail. Former prime ministers and the interior minister should be held accountable for their negligence in the incident,” Şeker further commented.
Erdem also added that he will launch a criminal complaint against those responsible, including those who issued a verdict of non-prosecution in the case, those who did not prevent the transfer of chemicals and those who first ordered the arrest of the suspects who were later released.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced in late August that an inquiry had been launched into the gas attacks allegedly perpetuated by both Assad’s Syrian regime and rebel groups fighting in Syria since the civil war erupted in 2011.
However, Erdem is not the only figure who has accused Turkey of possible involvement in the gas attack. Pulitzer Prize winner and journalist, Seymour M. Hersh, argued in an article published in 2014 that MİT was involved with extremist Syrian groups fighting against the Assad regime.
In his article, Hersh said Assad was not behind the attack, as claimed by the US and Europe, but that Turkish-Syrian opposition collaboration was trying to provoke a US intervention in Syria in order to bring down the Assad regime.
Keywords: Eren Erdem , Ali Şeker , Syria , Turkey , chemical attack
The egregious violations of constitutional rights by the USA in nearly all (probably all, actually) departments, points to the general contempt for the rule of law by my nation. As Christian nationalism grows at the Pentagon, denying the Enlightenment roots of the American secular republic, we see the spreading fruit of the National Security Act of 1947 having upended our constitution and supplanted rule of law with color of law. Were the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution to mean anything, with its provision for “equal protection of the law” applied in the present circumstance, transgender people would have every right to both; be themselves and to perform their military duties without exception. The following op-ed points to the patent meaninglessness of our leaders oath to uphold the constitution, or worse, the inability to grasp the point and meaning of that very oath. Following article reposted with permission of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.
*
– March 25, 2018
Statement by Transgender Client of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) on the Reissued Ban on Transgender People in the Military:
Friday the Trump Administration reissued its ban on Transgender people in the military. The exceptions are persons who have been “stable for 36 consecutive months in their biological sex prior to accession [and] service members who do not require a change of gender.” While it’s unclear how the Administration defines the term biological sex, “those requiring medications and surgery” are out. Clearly, Trump has an unwarranted bias against Transgender people who need to physically transition.
This time they have gone past the trite and debunked arguments of unit cohesiveness, medical costs, and deployability to a broad claim that Transgender people “present considerable risk to military effectiveness and lethality.” As a retired military officer, defense worker and a Transgender person who still works on a military installation, I find this accusation deplorable. It desecrates my 40 years of sacrifice, dedication, and public service to the nation. To insinuate that I have been and am a risk to national defense is ludicrous and demeans the medals, promotions and great things I accomplished while serving in the name of national security.
The truth is, there are and have been Transgender military members serving with honor and distinction for centuries. I am just one of many. We were forced to keep out of sight. But isn’t that the Administration’s objective? This move is simply a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy for Transgender people: Out of sight, out of mind. The Administration wants to force Transgender members out, keep Transgender applicants out, and scare those left into hiding; demand they be someone they are not and compromise their personal integrity.
The Administration and those egging them on, want to first erase us from the military, that’s the easy one. Then erase us from the rest of society. Last month the Kansas Republican Party approved a resolution that opposes “all efforts to validate Transgender identity,”
What do these people use as the rationale for their Transphobia? They cite “God’s design for gender”. It has nothing to do with the ability to perform the tasks required of a military member. It’s really all about forming a rigid society void of diversity by exploiting the hypnotic power of religion to rid the society of individuals who don’t strictly adhere to their model.
To achieve this goal within the constitutional confines of the U.S. they must secure religious exemptions by manipulating political power (i.e. the Trump Administration). These exemptions are special rights to unleash their discriminatory and oppressive bigotry in violation of civil rights protections and equality standards. Within the military, this is what really undermines unit cohesion and places national security at risk.
As a client and supporter of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), I am incensed. The tenets of our Constitution, the ones I swore to uphold, and the standards of integrity we expect of our soldiers, sailors and airmen, are being undermined by a hypocritical cult who is weaponizing the Christian religion and is bent on creating a military that mirrors their myopic societal view to further their dominionist aims.
We Transgender people are contributing members of society. We deserve the same rights and respect afforded all citizens including serving in the U.S. military; no more, no less. The Transgender community, who adds a chromatic spectrum to the human experience, is the low hanging fruit for these theocratic ideologues and the canary in the coal mine for true freedom-loving Americans.
In this author’s preceding assessment, ‘A Criminal Magic Act’, it had been proposed:
“Every Trump firing at the national security level, to now, has seen replacements consolidating the dominionist position and increased the threat of civilization ending event. If it is true Israel could not exercise impunity without support of the Americans, it is equally true these American dominionists could never have come to power without decades support of Israel via AIPAC”
It would appear this scenario has held up once more; Bibi has his preferred choice of a Christian Zionist (dominionist) replacing H.R. McMaster. McMaster wasn’t a problem for Bibi as much as for Trump; with the general’s Russia animus and refusal to back Trump in the phony matter of ‘the Russians did it’ collusion. In any case this is an even more extreme Iran hating Christian Zionist replacing an Iran hating Christian Zionist, pointing to no change at all per policy of upcoming wider war in the middle-east with Iran in focus, a longtime pet project of Netanyahu.
How on earth Trump thinks he can back Israel attacking Iran without drawing Russia into a wider regional war, leading to World War Three, let alone pursue his oft stated desire of rapprochement with the Russians, is a question best left to the psychiatrists. Meanwhile, meet the deep state associates of the queer* John ‘nikki’s fetish’ Bolton:
Deep State: Meet The John Bolton Chapter
from wikispooks:
Le Cercle is a deep state milieu which was set up around the same time as the Bilderberg, but is smaller and more secretive. It is attended especially by idealogues including spooks, deep politicians and editors. Members promote their hawkish agenda by otherwise subverting the democratic process, possibly going as far as brokering weapons deals and setting up false flag attacks. Their warmaking is also ideological – distributing propaganda to stoke fear of communism, promoting the “war on terror” etc. [Exposed past & present members include John Bolton]
*queer |kwi(ə)r|
1 adjective
strange; odd: Le Cercle members have a queer political orientation; it follows, John Bolton is a rather queer fellow.
2 verb [ with obj. ]
spoil or ruin (an agreement, event, or situation): Bolton was brought onboard to queer the deal with Iran:
Relating to NAZIs (the video), it should be noted the founder of the CDU (Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats), that is Konrad Adenauer, was sitting together at Le Cercle with Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler’s eastern front intelligence chief, a major NAZI war criminal rescued from justice by the Central Intelligence Agency. For those interested in pursuing the Adenauer/Gehlen developments resulting in authentic NAZI influence of today’s Germany in relation to intelligence agency crimes, have a read HERE
Among the Americans, beyond former financiers like Volker, and murderous criminal creeps Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry Kissinger & Richard Armitage, also noted is the membership of CIA criminal extraordinary Ted Shackley, as well, two former CIA directors, William Colby & William Casey, and a former head of the FBI, Louis Freeh.
A former Special Forces Sergeant of Operations and Intelligence, Ronald Thomas West is a retired paralegal/investigator (living in exile) whose work focus had been anti-corruption and human rights. Ronald is published in International Law as a layman (The Mueller-Wilson Report, co-authored with Dr Mark D Cole) and has been adjunct professor of American Constitutional Law at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany (for English credit, summer semester 2008.) Ronald’s formal educational background is primarily social psychology.His therapeutic device is satire
Why recent moves promoting Mike Pompeo to head up Department of State, and Gina Haspel taking over at CIA, point to the generals consolidating power for a man in the shadow of Donald Trump, Mike Pence. These promotions are element of contest between vying factions where the generals are winning. We begin with the promotion of torturer Haspel at CIA, to arrive at understanding of where this is presently pointed in a convoluted series of contested maneuvers from behind the curtain. First, some information warfare background.
A good analogy for a ‘limited hangout’ is a tax cheat. Information is the wealth one hides, in the ‘limited hangout context’ of declaring ‘yeah, I have wealth’ for the fact there is no denying the obvious but a great deal of this wealth is deliberately kept concealed. The main difference between the Central Intelligence Agency and the tax cheat is, if you’re Gina Haspel hiding a wealth of incriminating information, you’ll enjoy ‘sovereign immunity’ from disclosure of that wealth of criminality in the so-called ‘justice’ system; whereas if you’re Paul Manafort who’d laundered income to conceal it and then been dumb enough to invite scrutiny by becoming a high profile personality associated with Trump, there is no legal mechanism to save your butt short of a presidential pardon, meanwhile yourself & concealed wealth can be ‘hung out to dry.’
Building on the tax cheat analogy per the American neoliberal democracy, little different to the income of the individual or corporation must be declared to the Income Revenue Service, the acts of our institutions must be declared to the citizen via congressional oversight; but we should know our ‘public servants’ have a history of cheating.
Example given, when it was Dick Cheney concealing his Central Intelligence Agency run murder program (hit squads) with instruction to CIA not to inform Congress, and Obama’s “Look forward, not back” excusing Cheney’s extra-judicial murder program and much more (when considering the related renditions program), from investigative scrutiny and prosecution. Cheney and Obama are major corporate ‘tax cheats’ in a quid pro quo relationship; we know multiple millions (billions?) were expended pursuing grossly criminal acts by the intelligence agencies but the taxpayer footing the bill is kept in the dark except in the case of a ‘limited hangout’ divulging ‘just enough’ information to satisfy some Orwellian ‘new speak’ sense of ‘accountability’ (but certainly not justice.) Such a ‘limited hangout’ is the Feinstein ‘torture report.’
What the Feinstein Report Doesn’t Tell Us
The 1st thing is, how many actual renditions took place. Recalling certain ‘allied’ intelligence agencies are looking after #1, there is a ‘Sword of Damocles’ hanging over the CIA renditions report in the form of MOSSAD ‘assets’ Reprieve (a British ‘human rights’ NGO) and The Guardian. We’ll come back to this aspect, but first:
To now, Reprieve (in a project endorsed by The Guardian) has identified 11,000 flights by known CIA renditions aircraft. How many of those flights were to ‘outsourced’ torture? (sites other than CIA run ‘black sites’.) Related to this, Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan had been up to his armpits in the Bush torture program:
MARGARET WARNER: “So is it — are you saying both in two ways — both in getting terrorists off the streets and also in the interrogation?
JOHN BRENNAN: “Yes. The rendition is the practice or the process of rendering somebody from one place to another place. It is moving them and the U.S. Government will frequently facilitate that movement from one country to another. . . .
“Also I think it’s rather arrogant to think we’re the only country that respects human rights. I think that we have a lot of assurances from these countries that we hand over terrorists to that they will, in fact, respect human rights”
“And there are different ways to gain those assurances. But also let’s say an individual goes to Egypt because they’re an Egyptian citizen and the Egyptians then have a longer history in terms of dealing with them, and they have family members and others that they can bring in, in fact, to be part of the whole interrogation process”
Do you suppose Brennan’s cynically referring to this statement in a Human Rights Watch report?
“…[Egyptian] techniquesinclude threats to inflict torture or sexual abuse on detainees’ female family members, including wives, threats to arrest family members, exposure to screams…’
How absolutely unwise of Brennan to use the Egypt example in the cause of renditions to outsourced torture he supported, because his CIA proxy interrogator (torture darling) in Egypt at the time was Omar Sulieman:
“Shortly after 9/11, Australian citizen, Mamdouh Habib, was captured by Pakistani security forces and, under US pressure, tortured by Pakistanis. He was then rendered (with an Australian diplomats watching) by CIA operatives to Egypt, a not uncommon practice. In Egypt, Habib merited Suleiman’s personal attention. As related by Richard Neville, based on Habib’s memoir:
Habib was interrogated by the country’s Intelligence Director, General Omar Suleiman…. Suleiman took a personal interest in anyone suspected of links with Al Qaeda. As Habib had visited Afghanistan shortly before 9/11, he was under suspicion. Habib was repeatedly zapped with high-voltage electricity, immersed in water up to his nostrils, beaten, his fingers were broken and he was hung from metal hooks.
“That treatment wasn’t enough for Suleiman, so:
To loosen Habib’s tongue, Suleiman ordered a guard to murder a gruesomely shackled Turkistan prisoner in front of Habib – and he did, with a vicious karate kick.
“After Suleiman’s men extracted Habib’s confession, he was transferred back to US custody, where he eventually was imprisoned at Guantanamo. His “confession” was then used as evidence in his Guantanamo trial”
Moving forward, how many of the 11,000 flights by known CIA renditions aircraft were made to simply ‘disappear’ people? A British case opened a glimpse into this aspect; the investigation in Britain of the CIA’s rendition of Binyam Mohamed (who was outsourced to torture where his testicles had been brutalized) turned up a MI6 manual instruction to British intelligence officers not to become involved with any CIA rendition where the objective was to kill the target. In the MI6 manual chapter produced for the British court, it is clear the manual instruction’s overall context is intended to keep the British officers clean of and British jurisdiction clear of (and by extension, Her Majesty’s government) certain specified crimes in relation to CIA actions in violation of international law:
“Is it clear that detention, rather than killing, is the objective of the operation?”
It would appear the British are not squeamish about cooperating with CIA in relation to deliveries to torture, rather they are of the ‘if we didn’t see it, it didn’t happen’ philosophy. Where it appears they had drawn a line is in relation to ‘disappearing’ people to die. This inference can be drawn following the preceding MI6 manual language, because everything else in the chapter produced from the MI6 manual for the court is about what the officers would be required to report under British obligations to humanitarian law, if observed; all known CIA renditions practices such as hooding, beating and ‘torture’ (read water-boarding) in relation to any agencies MI6 works in ‘liaison’ with (read CIA.)
With the MI6 manual providing the first hard documentary evidence from allied intelligence there is a concern over renditions to ‘disappear’ people, specifying killing in context of working with the Americans, it follows the Americans involved with renditions should be given a strict scrutiny in regards not only to torture, this is already well documented, but renditions as interim step to targeted killings or ‘disappearing’ kidnapped people. This brings up ‘the ships‘ …
“U.S. PRISON SHIPS: On June 2, 2008 UK’s Guardian reported, “The US has admitted that the Bataan and Peleliu were used as prison ships between December 2001 and January 2002”. According to Reprieve, the U.S. may have used 17 ships as “floating prisons” since 2001. Detainees are interrogated on ships and may be rendered to other, undisclosed locations. Reprieve expressed concern over the time the U.S.S. Ashland spent off Somalia in early 2007. According to The Guardian, “At this time many people were abducted by Somali, Kenyan and Ethiopian forces in a systematic operation involving regular interrogations by individuals believed to be members of the FBI and CIA. Ultimately more than 100 individuals were ‘disappeared’ to prisons in locations including Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Guantanamo Bay. Reprieve believes prisoners may have also been held for interrogation on the USS Ashland and other ships in the Gulf of Aden during this time.”
…leading to the ‘ghost’ prisons & prisoners and Diego Garcia:
“The [ghost] prison’s existence was also confirmed by Dick Marty, a Swiss senator who produced a detailed report on “extraordinary rendition” for the Council of Europe in June 2007 (PDF) and by Manfred Novak, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Torture, in March this year. Having spoken to senior CIA officers during his research, Marty told the European Parliament, “We have received concurring confirmations that United States agencies have used Diego Garcia, which is the international legal responsibility of the UK, in the ‘processing’ of high-value detainees,” and Manfred Novak explained to the Observer that “he had received credible evidence from well-placed sources familiar with the situation on the island that detainees were held on Diego Garcia between 2002 and 2003.” The penultimate piece of the jigsaw puzzle came in May [2008], when El Pais broke the story that “ghost prisoner” Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, whose current whereabouts are unknown, was imprisoned on the island in 2005, shortly after his capture in Pakistan — although the English-speaking press failed to notice
“Despite these previous disclosures, yesterday’s [2008] article, by Adam Zagorin, is particularly striking because of the high-level nature of the source, and his admission that “the CIA officer surprised attendees by volunteering the information, apparently to demonstrate that the agency was doing its best to obtain valuable intelligence.” In addition, the source noted that “the U.S. may also have kept prisoners on ships within Diego Garcia’s territorial waters, a contention the U.S. has long denied”
Considering the ages old folk proverb ‘leopards don’t shed their spots’, taken together with the history of CIA propping up regimes infamous for ‘disappearing’ people (juntas of Argentina, Brazil & Chile, examples given), the preceding material indicates a tremendous potential for blackmail. Into this potential ‘blackmail soup’ we can add The Guardian NEVER does friendly business with, or promotes, any entity at odds with Israel; bringing up the 11,000 known renditions aircraft flights and Reprieve practically having its hand fondly held by the Guardian when it comes to reporting on CIA renditions. What it would seem we have here is Reprieve’s a ‘limited hangout with potential’ or, that is to say if it favored Israel, it’s possible MOSSAD could arrange to feed Reprieve a ‘leak’ of renditions related documents tomorrow, naming numerous ‘ghost’ prisoners that were ‘disappeared’ and can never be accounted for, and The Guardian would publish the material in a heartbeat. Example would be the removal of David Petraeus (Paula Broadwell is the cover story) as head of CIA via a Guardian/BBC collaboration, to now absent in USA media:
“A 15-month investigation by the Guardian and BBC Arabic reveals how retired US colonel James Steele, a veteran of American proxy wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua, played a key role in training and overseeing US-funded special police commandos who ran a network of torture centres in Iraq. Another special forces veteran, Colonel James Coffman, worked with Steele and reported directly to General David Petraeus, who had been sent into Iraq to organise the Iraqi security services”
Why did Petraeus have to go? For the simple reason of religious conviction:
Dominionists celebrate Christian nationalism, in that they believe that the United States once was, and should once again be, a Christian nation. In this way, they deny the Enlightenment roots of American democracy.
Dominionists promote religious supremacy, insofar as they generally do not respect the equality of other religions, or even other versions of Christianity.
Dominionists endorse theocratic visions, insofar as they believe that the Ten Commandments, or “biblical law,” should be the foundation of American law, and that the U.S. Constitution should be seen as a vehicle for implementing Biblical principles.
“85 percent of our leadership were active in dynamic Bible study”
…became a problem for MOSSAD, that is, dominionists not only believe in a ‘Greater Israel’, they also believe in literal Armageddon, in which case the Jewish state would certainly be destroyed, have a listen to the USA’s #1 authority on dominionism in the American military…
“You’re telling me 28 to 34 percent of our military want 7 billion people to die” [believe in literal Armageddon] … “The simple answer is affirmative”
…noting the officer corps are a much higher (up to 85%) concentration of dominionism persuasion.
A sample of known dominionists surrounding Trump in the so-called ‘national security’ apparatus would include ‘the generals’ McMaster, Kelly and Mattis, all aligned with known dominionist Mike Pence, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, and now Mike Pompeo at Department of State:
“We make sure that we pray and stand and fight and make sure that we know that Jesus Christ is our savior is truly the only solution for our world” -Mike Pompeo
Insofar as the CIA Pompeo will continue to heavily influence as head of its Siamese twin Department of State, and the intelligence community generally:
“In the intelligence community, we see supervisors wanting to hold Bible studies during duty hours” -Mikey Weinstein
Complicating any attempt at injecting rationality into this scene of necrotic fundamentalism that has been aptly named the American “Christian Taliban” by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation is, superstitious Slovenian villager Melania Trump repeatedly importing scores of priests and pastors to the White House for purpose of exorcism and laying hands on ‘the donald.’
Now, to the recent ‘you’re fired’ to Tillerson, resulting in the promotions of Pompeo and Haspel.
“Bloody Gina” appointed to head up the CIA isn’t just a message of ‘anything goes’ but is much more than this, it’s a deliberate side-show setting up media distraction; it is a form of information warfare. This is because, whether Gina Haspel is confirmed to run the CIA or not, nothing changes at CIA leadership where Haspel has been the hands on grunt, as deputy director, for over a year. And it is over this past year the CIA policies described earlier in this article, will have been put in place again, never mind anything Haspel has to say in her confirmation hearing; the woman is a practitioner of narcissistic cruelty, a foot-soldier-sadist in the tradition of dominionist Dick Cheney. It is this last, immediate preceding, or Cheney legacy, should concern us above all.
Prior to the unexpected/unforeseen election of Donald Trump, the Israeli alliance with the American religious right had been a Faustian balancing act; Netanyahu and his ilk politically exploited the Christian right and its belief in a ‘Greater Israel’ but this alliance with a community that holds that ‘Greater Israel’, once established, will necessarily be destroyed, had always been tempered by neoliberals in positions of power, whether the likes of Chuck Schumer, Barack Obama, John Brennan or a whole host of other people supporting the arch-criminal Hillary Clinton, notably Soros. During the time of Bush/Cheney it could be argued Jewish neocons, as viciously aggressive as they are, helped the neoliberals keep the total insanity of these Christian Zionists in check. Corporate neocolonizing (Manifest Destiny 2.0 is where neocons, dominionists and neoliberals are indistinguishable) of the world is one thing, provoking World War Three is another thing altogether. Nearly all of this ‘restraint’ is now tossed out the window, never previously has the White House seen such a near absolute consolidation of power in the hands of theologically driven advocates of total world war.
Previous means of MOSSAD and Shin Bet checking the power of extremists in the ‘Greater Israel’ cause (when politicians weren’t listening), whether Shin Bet presently seeing off the messianic ultra-orthodox allied Bibi with corruption charges, or MOSSAD with news waiting in the wings of American press for the fact of David Petraeus had been directly responsible for torture camps and death squads in Iraq, or possibly Reprieve suddenly inheriting a largesse of information concerning the Cheney era abuses, up to and including numerous cases of ‘disappeared’ via renditions, to send off Gina Haspel, are likely useless in the present circumstance. There’s not enough time. Some context, per Natanyahu’s former MOSSAD chief:
“As Dagan sees it, Netanyahu is incapable of leading Israel and has failed on all fronts. Israel has never been so strong militarily, he argues, yet had such weak political leaders. While he worked together with Netanyahu, Dagan says that the prime minister never informed him of any concrete political or military objectives. It is only when it comes to Iran that Netanyahu has an opinion — and a goal. In order to achieve this goal, Dagan accuses Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak of trying to silence all criticism. The two politicians want to make this decision without involving the rest of the government, Dagan contends. And he views this way of doing things as legally problematic.
“Indeed, Dagan says, this is why he and Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, the chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) from 2007 to 2011, were removed from their positions during the first months of this year, and why Yuval Diskin, the head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was not allowed to succeed him as head of the Mossad. Instead, they were replaced by individuals who reportedly have less critical views on attacking Iran and at least lack enough experience to take a firm stance against such a move.
“Dagan calls this a plot, a clandestine putsch by the politicians against the intelligence agencies. “Diskin, Ashkenazi and I succeeded in blocking all dangerous adventures,” he says, adding that now there is no one left to stand in their way.
“This version is supported by many former military officers, intelligence officials and politicians who defend Dagan and strike similar tones. “Listen to them, in every field,” says Tzipi Livni, the parliamentary opposition leader and head of the centrist Kadima party. Open criticism used to be rare in Israel, but that is no longer the case.
“Danny Yatom and Efraim Halevy, both former Mossad chiefs, say that Dagan is right to speak up — and that he apparently has good reasons for doing so. “The public should hear his opinion on Iran,” Yatom says. Those who know Dagan — and, particularly, generals and former colleagues — confirm he means what he says. They say he is neither interested in launching a political career nor seeking any benefit”
To put this preceding in perspective, it was the neoliberal Obama (believe it or not, with the help of ‘dubya’ warning Netanyahu not to take advantage of Bush Jr’s ‘lame duck’ days in office, to Cheney’s deep disappointment) stopped Bibi attacking Iran via the agreement Congress has effectively since scrapped. As a wag recently put it to me concerning Trump ousting Hillary in this planet’s greatest contest between world class criminals “so, we were better off in the frying pan, after all.”
Recalling former MOSSAD chief Dagan’s stating “Diskin, Ashkenazi and I succeeded in blocking all dangerous adventures” but these type personalities having been swept aside from the top (at least) of Israel’s security apparatus, the question arises over who in the AIPAC from the Jewish side can arrest their American Christian Zionist (dominionist) partners or if it is even possible at this point; where the Israeli lobby had screwed up and we all are faced with what they are responsible for: President Trump partnered with and surrounded by, one might say in the custody of, people willing to take the existential threat beyond all previous threshold or to a deliberate all out war with Russia. Every Trump firing at the national security level, to now, has seen replacements consolidating the dominionist position and increased the threat of civilization ending event. If it is true Israel could not exercise impunity without support of the Americans, it is equally true these American dominionists could never have come to power without decades support of Israel via AIPAC.
That it had been neoliberals who’d attempted to derail the election of Trump with their ‘Steele Dossier’ caper and ‘the Russians did it DNC hack’ information warfare against the American people, have seen their game co-opted, and are now trapped and can’t back out, would be funny if it weren’t for the larger implication. If Shiva is ‘god’, perhaps there is some meaning in all of this, beyond a sense of humor at a cosmic level.
A Criminal Magic Act
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President –Section Four, 25th Amendment to the USA Constitution
The months long rumor Pompeo would replace Tillerson at Department of State proved correct. More recently, rumor has it Trump is taking aim at the generals, beginning with National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster and intending to fire White House Chief of Staff General John Kelly as well. Meanwhile, General James Mattis, at Department of Defense, has been allowing the Pentagon to provoke Russia in both word and deed.
Donald Trump, who has already been, against his better instinct, coerced and/or manipulated into hostile relationship with Russia, may be the only thing standing between America’s dominionists and World War Three. Will he cave in altogether to the dominionists? No one knows. Will the generals engineer a war with Russia and hand it to Trump as a fait accompli? Certainly it’s possible. Will Mike Pence wait to hear his generals told ‘You’re fired!’ and see them go away? Don’t bet on it.
This is not the America that went quiet and mourned when JFK was assassinated by a cabal of businessmen aligned with Allen Dulles. Mike Pence, who has openly stated Dick Cheney is his role model, is no Lyndon Johnson. By comparison, the evil of Pence is compounded to a power of ten. What’s going on isn’t rocket science but it is a trap.
If anyone were to find the satire aspect of this post to be offensive, well, so what. I find the media lies we are fed every day to be offensive –
If the British can identify & specify the precise molecular composition of the supposed ‘Soviet era’ nerve agent they now claim had been employed to poison Skripal, they should as well be able to precisely replicate the same poison with all of the implications that might point to. Three suspects should be looked at with no particular order of preference:
1) MI6
2) CIA
3) Ukraine’s foreign security service
4) Any combination of the preceding
It simply makes no sense for Russia to have done this, Putin wouldn’t want the attending public relations making him out to be the godfather of all primal evil and Russia has not been keen on amping up tensions with the liberal democracies (unlike certain NATO aligned personalities)
Spook Soup
Insofar as people who’re trained to lie as one’s 1st nature, there is an Achilles’ heel can trap the undercover spook; “identity confusion” where one in four officers are established to suffer related psychological disturbance.
Now, as a brief exercise in ‘creative fiction’ before we examine the facts, let’s pose as writers for the UK paper ‘The Telegraph’ who’re moonlighting as Hollywood script writers, repackaging and selling the calls they’re receiving from MI6 (mis)shaping their storytelling (lies.)
As a literary device, we’ll lobotomize Christopher Steele & colleagues as a class; because the scientific literature regarding spooks working under cover has established they “should be intelligent” but “not too intelligent.” Hence their IQ must, at the least, present a challenge to certain science fiction chimpanzees:
It all begins with a meeting at Vauxhall, where Britain’s MI6 executive officers are called to an urgent meeting to consider an appalling circumstance; Alex Younger chairs the meeting and opens with a bone-chilling briefing, drawing a collective expression of fear from otherwise stoic & motley lot of veteran spooks where none know the real identity of the others (themselves included.)
AY: Ladies and Gentlemen, we have an unimaginable circumstance, it would seem there is a new General Grubozaboyschikov has bested our own real life Bond, that is Christopher Steele. Anyone that can outsmart someone as competent as Oscar LeWinter, and our Steele was every bit LeWinter’s equal, poses this agency nightmarish problems. Agent ViXen, this will not be pretty, brace yourself.
VX: Aii! You said “was”? Steele’s not survived?
AY: Not as a ‘man.’ Steele did indeed come in from the dark. His last act as a ‘man’ was to attend dinner with General Grubozaboyschikov’s agents Boris & Natasha, to receive a dossier on Trump. When our man woke up from the sedative slipped into his wine, he discovered his testicles had been drilled through and securely bolted down (with large washers flattening them to millimeters thickness) to the hardwood floor. Within Steele’s reach was an eXacto-knife with note attached and beyond his reach, his cell phone. The note said “Well, mate, cutting your own ball sack off is symbolic act at this point, by the time you read this your gonads will already be dead. The phone is in working order, now be a sport and do what must be done to reach the phone and save your life.” Agent ViXen, how would you feel about a new cover as a lesbian? You’re boyfriend Steele has come out of transgender surgery in fine shape; but his future with a ‘middle-aged cougar’ cover is in serious doubt .. you know, when that fine former male’s stiffied-upper lip gags in the act of giving head while assigned clandestine sexual liaisons. Our psychologists don’t believe he can make the transition… his persona is overly identified with James Bond.
VX: CURSE YOU BORIS AND NATASHA!!
Well, in a way, the preceding is about as accurate as reporting at The Telegraph (we’ll come to that) only probably much better. When circumstance finally requires sorting fact from fiction, it’ll likely come down to the Steele dossier was invented and fed to Christopher Steele by MI6, the CIA or, least likely, by Russian intelligence. The entire dossier content being essentially bullshit, effectively has castrated Steele as a reputable spook in the world of espionage and makes MI6 look dumber than a box of rocks. Steele’s firm Orbis is finished.
Boiled down, what the Telegraph claims, based on its ‘spook’ and other sources, is poisoned spy Sergei Skripal was Christopher Steele’s dossier source. Supposedly Skripal was meeting regularly with Russian intelligence at Russia’s embassy in London, presumably coming away with material damaging to Trump. The Telegraph reporting gives 100% credence to the dossier every intelligence figure that is not lobotomized understands is almost certainly altogether bogus.
According to the Telegraph, Skripal’s betrayal made the Russians so mad they assigned a hit squad to follow Skripal’s daughter to England and take them out to ‘send a message.’
Now, let’s repackage this patent nonsense in a wrapping of common sense.
Scenario One
Supposedly Russian intelligence in London is letting its people meet and discuss current events in ‘tradecraft’ terms with a former double agent in Russian intelligence, a man recently employed by MI6, who previously, prior to a spy swap, was in prison in Russia for giving up Russian spies to MI6. If, by some incredible stretch of the imagination this senario were to be true, only a lobotomized British spy could believe anything that had been reported back.
Consider [then] President Medvedev had pardoned Skripal at the time of the spy swap, presumably Skripal still has fully valid Russian citizenship. If he were indeed visiting the Russian embassy, it could be for any number of routine consular affairs, for instance keeping his passport current or dealing with bureaucratic procedures when applying for his retirement pension.
Possibly MI5/MI6 suspected Skripal was ‘redeeming’ himself with the Russians under pretense of using consular services; reporting back to the Russian side on his recent MI6 employment, as Skripal had expressed remorse at his trial in Russia and had cooperated with investigators, subsequently receiving a reduced sentence. If Skripal had been making routine visits to the Russian embassy, that couldn’t have pleased the British side.
Motive to assassinate Skripal assigned to British MI6.
Scenario Two
The Telegraph believes Vladimir Putin would actually opt for his world-wide reputation to be one of murderous slime. That’s basically the argument MI5/MI6 has made on behalf of their intelligence contacts proposing to media a Russian hit squad committed the poisoning to ‘send a message.’ A lobotomized British spy would suggest it, a lobotomized Telegraph editorial staff could pass it off as fact, and a lobotomized British public could believe it. It is this last is closest to fact, on account of the British public, and the western democracies’ public generally, are so pervasively lied to by media, they might as well be lobotomized.
Probably what actually had happened is, the Steele dossier was never supposed to be an issue at this point. The original intent had been the ‘Steele dossier’ should have derailed Trump’s election and we wouldn’t have a sitting President of the United States complicating the sh*t out of the fact the ‘dossier’ cannot be conveniently disposed of and buried in the past. Here’s the proposed conversation:
John Brennan: Alex, I have some ‘laundry’ concerning a certain pretender to the American throne, so to speak, and it’s origin is too close to home. I need an offshore laundromat that likes dollars laundered to pounds laundered to rubles.
Alex Younger: I have your man, none too bright, and enough distance on this end, out of our employ for 10 years. Formerly a Russia assignment. Put your people on developing a conduit to feed him, and of course, I can’t know about any of it.
But then, Trump beat all odds (and the popular vote with a constitutional loophole) to become president and the stinking dossier cannot be done away with. The next conversation went something like this:
Alex: John, your end dropped the ball. We need this mess cleaned up and quick.
John: Alex, we’ll do what we can but I’m a lame duck. Here’s Mike Pompeo’s number, he’s as mean as they come… it’ll get taken care of.
Subsequently, the lobotomized intelligence agencies have to bet on lobotomized media subservience to a point of the lobotomized British public, and the western democracies lobotomized public at large, is dumb enough to believe ‘the Russians did it’ to send a message because Putin could care less about public relations and desires to be known as the sire of Satan himself.
Desperate information warfare motive to assassinate Skripal assigned to combined CIA/British MI6.
Scenario Three
In this least likely ‘everyone on the liberal democracies’ intelligence agencies side is truly lobotomized’ scenario, known double agent Skripal, via Steele, was actually a conduit for Russian intelligence feeding false allegations to American intelligence concerning Trump. Lurid allegations that could never be proved are fed to Steele, Steele (and by default, the Americans) ran with this unvetted material from a severely dubious source creating a massive credibility problem were the dossier ever actually investigated. The result is British and American intelligence looking worse than the dumbest cartoon spooks, ever. Sadly, given the contemporary standard of British & American leadership at the intelligence agency level, however unlikely, this is actually possible.
Revenge/silenced witness motive assigned to the British and Americans.
Wild Card Scenario
Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service, MOSSAD, many nations secret services with an axe to grind for Russia, which could include NATO’s three Chihuahuas (Lithuania, Latvia & Estonia), Poland is run by Russophobes, other maverick NATO players, et cetera add nausea.
With the exception of Ukraine, whose leaders are of a much higher mental instability (on par with Anglo-Saxons) than your run of the mill European ‘liberal democracy’ cowardly and criminal leaders, Ukraine having shot down MH 17 with a combat jet, the very idea of Putin discovering a 3rd party false flag pointing to them probably would see their balls retract to a pre-puberty state. Excepting Ukraine (plausibly holding Soviet era nerve agent stocks), 3rd party false flag ruled out (with MOSSAD disqualified because they actually work to hold Bibi back from making existential threatening mistakes, the aggressively corrupt Bibi who sometimes may be MOSSAD’s puppet but is never MOSSAD’s master.)
What that persona of aggression named Theresa May should look at, instead of running her mouth based on what the likes of Alex Younger may be informing her, is this circumstance is too complicated-compromised from day one to go with your top professional liar.
What Alex Younger should be doing is, calling Gerhard Schindler and asking how it is he’d avoided public disclosure and jail when he’d been forced out as head of Germany’s BND almost certainly because of lying to the German Federal Parliament, on account of this informant (yours truly) had provided that very parliament convincing evidence of Schindler’s perfidy; when Schindler knowingly lied to parliament about who used chemical weapons in Syria.
Recipe for Spook Soup
“Professional standards require intelligence professionals to lie, hide information, or use covert tactics to protect their “cover,” access, sources, and responsibilities. The Central Intelligence Agency expects, teaches, encourages, and controls these tactics so that the lies are consistent and supported (“backstopped”). The CIA expects intelligence officers to teach others to lie, deceive, steal, launder money, and perform a variety of other activities that would certainly be illegal if practiced in the United States. They call these tactics “tradecraft,” and intelligence officers practice them in all the world’s intelligence services” -Hulnick & Mattausch, “Ethics and Morality in U.S. Secret Intelligence”
“a variety of other activities” & “certainly be illegal if practiced in the United States” should have been a bit wider net cast, to ‘certainly be illegal if practiced anywhere.’ Particularly when including attempted murders and murders. And that’s what you’ll oftentimes get in the world of spooks. Except when it comes to HUMIT (human intelligence or actual spies) the Russians are not so nearly dumb enough to ‘send a message’ incriminating themselves with a sloppy nerve agent poisoning. Only a desperate western or rogue Ukrainian intelligence agency would do that.
Desperate, you say? Well, yes. The entire ‘the Russians did it’ western intelligence caper is falling apart, from the Democratic National Committee ‘hack‘ to the Steele dossier consisting of little more than naturally produced human methane almost certainly originating in either Langley or Vauxhall. The more ‘Never Trump’ intelligence agencies’ lies fall apart, the more desperate the acts to attempt backstopping lies that can’t be backstopped. Even as they’re losing, their criminal business model demands they cannot lose. It’s an accelerating-losing psychological feedback loop at this point. Each subsequent act to shield the criminality lessens possibilities for their web of lies holding up.
The real question here is, when will any ‘allies’ toss the Ango-Saxons on either side of the pond in favor of rationality? Can they imagine life without NATO aggression? In a geopolitical rearrangement realistically engaging-cooperating with Russia? Or are they all lobotomized?
Note on the preceding: I hate to give up hope my countrymen will find a means to clean up the anti-constitutional order unleashed by the National Security Act of 1947, creating a CIA these days fused at many levels with the Pentagon, enabling absolute idiots at the intelligence agencies and warmongers at the White House running the affairs of my country like a deep state Monopoly board game with nukes. Nothing would get common Americans attention like some longstanding European allies finally saying ‘this is a reach too far’ and putting up some real resistance to the utter criminality overtaken leadership of my nation. Courageous statesmanship is what’s needed.
“It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime” –Thomas Paine
“I don’t think history has witnessed this level of deceit before or perhaps it is that with changing times and trends the ‘works of deceit’ have been made more sophisticated” –Zara Ali
Throughout the short history of ronaldthomaswest.com, there has been a concern on my part that I would not be judged kindly. Allow me to explain. It was never my intent to take the road in life this website reflects. It covers subject matter I’d never any predisposition to delve into, a world of grotesque lies and contorted pseudo realities so profane, one should as a matter of fact presume to have a dirtied soul as matter of consequence. However I would suppose, but not with superior confidence, there might be someone or two great personalities could penetrate the manifold layers of deceit and never be dirtied, that is not me. I don’t enjoy the dirt and yet discover a visceral laugh, time to time, in myself that seems evil, reveling in injuring evil. I should suppose there is a special place in Hell for persons who become addicted to the geopolitical contest to point of living this aspect for entertainment sake. Gratefully, I can also say this is not me. Even at my most profane, what I attempt to do, and hopefully I am not deceiving myself, is reflect what I see, and what the reader should see is a reflection which does not necessarily implicate myself, but is a filtered refraction that works to remove the mirage and gain better insights to the nature and structures of the evil we are confronted with.
But even when working to make people laugh with my satire, a means to break the grip of, and dis-empower that evil over our lives, one should never lose sight of the fact there is an ugliness taken over our world that is unprecedented in history; with the power to cross nearly every frontier unchecked. Wicked gossip, for all of the problems it had created throughout human history, were never so profane and evil as the intelligence operations seen in today’s world, especially the information operations in our western world or, one could say empire mass media of the digital age.
Not being of the western civilization, culturally speaking, one might suppose I could sit back and enjoy watching Christendom tearing itself apart like a pack of dogs turned on itself. But when was it ever different to this? Europe has been attacking itself throughout modern history, and even before that. Western civilization, to the times preceding Homer, are a story of the sword. Now, in the era of nuclear weapons, this historical, and one could consequently argue, innate aggression, signals a collective suicide is inevitable. How is it this culture can, in the meanwhile, view itself as humanitarian and altruistic, is beyond the pale of sane reason, it is a peculiar insanity in and of itself.
But it is the culture, especially today’s Christian culture sprung from Europe, it is not some biological factor, that threatens to end us all in the present moment. Other cultures, particularly those the Christian culture had extirpated, were never pointed to the threat we see today.
In the ‘half-civilized’ European based culture called American, where the jails and asylums of Europe had been emptied, and religious fanatics banished to, all stirred into a hybrid vigor, now a superstitious Slovenian villager, Melania Trump, has scores of pastors and priests trouping through the White House, exorcising the premises and pouring oil on and hopefully blessing ‘the donald’ as that moron flails hopelessly in the custody of generals whose real loyalties are difficult to pin down; in a mishmash comprised of corporate board future promise related to wealth, present self-important strut-mincing for geopolitical posturing sake, and not least, rabid fundamentalism so extreme as to be labeled Christian Taliban, a point of ‘faith’ they share with commander-in-chief-in-waiting Mike Pence, an American Himmler if ever there were such a creature determined to be unleashed upon us by the fates.
This preceding is nuclear armed cocktail creating its own ‘raison d’ être.’
Relevant to this, for over a year this blog has made the case there was never a ‘Russian DNC hack’ that was actually an insider leak by the assassinated Seth Rich, and now a former admiral has published at the Washington Times what amounts to identical argument made here; the entire ‘Russians did it’ business is being sustained with corrupt process by criminals at the FBI and above. Interestingly, the admiral suggests Mike Pence’s fraternal brother, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, is not up to the job when he concludes:
“The Trump administration must take charge and get a competent attorney general to pursue these crimes”
He’s right. But what he may not realize is, the traitors surrounding Trump include (but are not limited to) John Kelly, ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis, H.R. McMaster, that is the generals, not only Mike Pence and Jeff Sessions, Jeff Sessions being the Attorney General who has NOT called out ‘the Russians did it’ caper for what it is, a CIA initiated information operation spurring appointment of Special Counsel to take down Trump.
None of these preceding are standing in the way of Trump being taken down by corrupt process, lies as it were, it was John Kelley denied Trump opportunity to meet with Dana Rohrabacher and break the facts of the DNC leak into the open. Why would a recently retired Marine Corps general, who happens to be White House Chief of Staff, sabotage reporting of fact to the President of the United States, facts that should defuse tensions with Russia by removing false accusations, but instead shields criminal culpability engineering aggression? They’re playing for time, to give Robert Mueller opportunity to bring charges altogether unrelated to the purported Russia caper, a failed CIA endeavor, instead holding out for indicting Trump on his historic mafia ties, going back to the days of Roy Cohn. The dirt is there. But Trump is a petty criminal by comparison to Department of Justice players in the game at this point merely to save their own asses. The game has been flipped on the unwitting CIA assets at DoJ who are in turn being gamed by the generals.
Mike Pence is the generals’ deep state player of choice and Pentagon insurance policy from the time of Trump’s nomination and choice of running mate. In the internecine war between the neoliberal deep state players embedded at CIA versus the Pentagon, vying for the upper hand at the White House, it is the generals who’re winning (to now.)
Vladimir ‘The Innocent’ (in this circumstance) had recently laid out a very reasonable case for how the USA has, over two decades, positioned itself to militarily confront Russia, broken their promise not to move NATO east, aborted the ABM treaty, used subterfuge, refused cooperation, and more, all pointed to underhandedly seeking dominance over Russia’s area of strategic interests. The result had finally been Russia unmasking new strategic weapons the USA is ill prepared to counter. Having announced the new systems, President Putin stated:
“No, nobody really wanted to talk to us about the core of the problem, and nobody wanted to listen to us. So, listen to us now!”
I fear Mr Putin has over-estimated the rationality of these ‘nobodies.’ It may well be they’re incapable of listening. They have weapons mass of destruction and they’ll lie to themselves concerning any mismatch of capabilities and ultimately decide they have developed sufficient strategy to ‘test’ those weapons in some circumstance other than a game. In other words, the American generals are legitimately insane. If you don’t think so, likely you’re suffering a form of denial that is insanity too.
By definition, people who lie to themselves as a matter of habit, should be considered mentally unbalanced. It follows, when your institutions and leadership pervasively lie to the public (because they are organically incapable of being honest with themselves) and actually believe this lying is a ‘good thing’, after all, these people do go to church, you have a ‘larger than life’ problem, Jesus saying ‘everything that is concealed will be revealed’ notwithstanding.
Meanwhile, our media having run with these lies, despite ample evidence there’s not an honest man in the lot of these cowards who would rule us, points to outcome beyond the comprehension of a public incapable of absorbing facts they have little access to. When this charade falls apart, as it must, it may be well too late for any resolution within the bounds of reason. By then, the criminal element will have upped the ante to outright actionable insanity, because leopards don’t shed their spots and criminals don’t voluntarily surrender their business models. They’ll take whatever action they think necessary to avoid going to jail and if that means a serious enough war justifying suspending civil liberties and declaring martial law at home, that is precisely the direction things will take, short of some courageous statesman, at the state level, leveling with the people, and getting media to go along. What are the chances of this civil salvation? Slim to none and growing more remote everyday.
Aaron Mate at ‘The Real News’ gives CIA troll John Sipher coverage to claim the clickbait operation is actually Russian intelligence directed by Putin but Mate’s tepid questions force Sipher to admit this a ‘faith’ issue. Does the ‘real news’ do truth a favor by running a CIA troll’s narrative? You decide:
Manafort hit with new money laundering charges in the tens of millions, never mind Hillary’s hundreds of millions of laundered dollars (Clinton Foundation) seem to be on the back burner, with little to no DoJ attention; the best educated guess from here is, DoJ will drag out the Clinton/Uranium One case until a new, ‘deep state friendly’ administration head is in place (possibly Pence, and sooner rather than later), when the Clinton case will be quietly euthanized. Meanwhile the ‘small fish’ Manafort was an idiot for aligning himself with Trump, providing opportunity for corrupt prosecutors to use his criminal activity for propaganda purposes:
The USA’s new international narcotics trafficking top cop profiles like a CIA plant from top to bottom, don’t be surprised when a former employee of Porter Goss is just one more cop who doesn’t take on the agency:
NATO’s Turkey threatens to overrun portions of Greece and is on track to resurrect Islamic portions of the Ottoman empire according to President Erdogan:
“Operation Mockingbird did not end” -CIA officer Kevin Shipp, in two parts, brings a (very condensed) history of the CIA (primarily) that I don’t entirely agree with, up to present, inclusive of his interpretations of the present circumstance surrounding Trump. However, what Shipp does that’s really quite interesting is, cede the idea the Steele ‘dossier’ was actually obtained from senior Russian intelligence contacts and then proceeds to rip apart this proposed fact from a counter-intelligence point of view; in short, makes the point of ‘why would Russian intelligence provide any information other than something to make the MI6 & CIA look like fools (or worse) when it all turned out to be bulls**t.’ Shipp basically admits he is still on the learning curve while skating over certain topics where he leaves the government metadata line intact (notably, but not only, 9/11) but all in all he gets most of his stuff right and appears to be on the up and up. Well worth the 2 hours watch for those looking for reasonably accurate outline of what has happened to the USA behind the curtain:
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Related articles at ronaldthomaswest.com:
If the CIA did indeed use Christopher Steele as a ‘cut-out’ to fish for dirt on Trump from Russian intelligence (I’m still inclined to believe CIA made this s**t up themselves, never expecting the complication of Trump winning the election), however that might seem like a ‘beyond the pale’ level of stupidity, the leadership over at CIA has in recent years demonstrated they are perfectly capable of behavior that should be consigned forever to the category of ‘greatest dumbshits acts in history’
Insofar as the DNC mails, this blog continues to maintain it was a leak by the assassinated Seth Rich, nothing has surfaced to the contrary to convince otherwise, rather the body of evidence only grows:
The Alter-Ego Boys
(or, perhaps they’re just alter-boys)
So, who is the greater criminal, Robert Manson or Charlie Mueller? Er, I meant, Charlie Manson or Robert Mueller? We’ll begin with Robert Mueller. Be patient, we’ll get to ‘Charlie’ Mueller’s more recent angels, James Comey and Christopher Wray. But first…
^ Click on photo for the ‘official’ story
Mueller’s stellar criminal career and his earlier angel, FBI ‘expert witness’ Thomas Thurman [1], points to Mueller’s criminal complicity in geopolitical murders [2]. Mueller had oversight role of the USA end of the Lockerbie investigation as a Department of Justice attorney, concerning the mass murder of hundreds of people with the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 [3] at Lockerbie, Scotland. We can neatly sum this case up with the statement [4] of a senior investigative official in Scotland’s police:
[4] “The retired officer – of assistant chief constable rank or higher – has testified that the CIA planted the tiny fragment of circuit board crucial in convicting a Libyan for the 1989 mass murder of 270 people
“The officer, who was a member of the Association of Chief Police Officers Scotland, is supporting earlier claims by a former CIA agent that his bosses “wrote the script” to incriminate Libya
“The fragment was later identified by the FBI’s Thomas Thurman as being part of a sophisticated timer device used to detonate explosives, and manufactured by the Swiss firm Mebo, which supplied it only to Libya and the East German Stasi
“Thurman was later unmasked as a fraud who had given false evidence in American murder trials, and it emerged that he had little in the way of scientific qualifications”
Charlie’s ‘angel’ Thomas Thurman was the FBI’s go to ‘evidence’ man and ‘expert’ witness whenever our CIA’s and/or deep state’s rulers wanted someone framed up for something they’d actually not done. When Thurman was unmasked as a fraud responsible for false convictions, instead of facing prosecution, he was ‘retired’ (kept his pension) and found employ as a professor, and Mueller was never so much as questioned about how Thurman might have compromised the Lockerbie case.
Recalling the CIA role in the preceding case handled by Mueller, it should come as no surprise Mueller would be, again as a DoJ attorney, the agency’s damage control man when he was the saboteur [5] assigned to sinking the biggest money laundering criminal case in USA history; the primary Iran-Contra facilitating bank [6] BCCI:
[5] “Kerry will later conclude that the Justice Department in particular went to great lengths to block his and Morgenthau’s investigations “through a variety of mechanisms, ranging from not making witnesses available, to not returning phone calls, to claiming that every aspect of the case was under investigation in a period when little, if anything was being done.” After the Bank of England shuts down BCCI in July 1991 (see July 5, 1991), making big headlines, Under Assistant Attorney General Robert Mueller takes over Justice Department efforts on BCCI and assigns many new attorneys to the case. But Kerry will ultimately conclude that the indictments the Justice Department brings forth against BCCI after that time were narrower and less detailed than those of Morgenthau’s, and often seemed to be in response to what Morgenthau was doing”
[6] “BCCI was the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, a dirty offshore bank that then-President Ronald Reagan’s Central Intelligence Agency used to run guns to Hussein, finance Osama bin Laden, move money in the illegal Iran-Contra operation and carry out other “agency” black ops. The Bushes also benefited privately; one of the bank’s largest Saudi investors helped bail out George W. Bush’s troubled oil investments”
So, Mueller doesn’t just have an ugly mug, he is just plain ugly. That becomes particularly clear when he moves from DoJ criminal division chief to head up the FBI, where he is most notable for NOT investigating the crimes sprees of the Bush Jr administration. Now, this is when it get sticky for his erstwhile DoJ buddy James Comey:
[7] “In 2004, Comey, then serving as a deputy attorney general in the Justice Department, apparently limited the scope of the criminal investigation of Sandy Berger, which left out former Clinton administration officials who may have coordinated with Berger in his removal and destruction of classified records from the National Archives. The documents were relevant to accusations that the Clinton administration was negligent in the build-up to the 9/11 terrorist attack
“Many will also be unaware that before Comey was installed by the Obama Administration as FBI Director, he was on the board of Director at HSBC Bank – a bank implicated in international money laundering, including the laundering of billions on behalf of international drugs and narcotics trafficking cartels.
“Forbes also points out where Comey was also at the key choke-point during the case involving dodgy auditor KPMG which followed on by the HSBC criminal case:
“If Comey, and his boss Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, had made a different decision about KPMG back in 2005, KPMG would not have been around to miss all the illegal acts HSBC and Standard Chartered SCBFF were committing on its watch. Bloomberg reported in 2007 that back in June of 2005, Comey was the man thrust into the position of deciding whether KPMG would live or die for its criminal tax shelter violations.”
Huh. Except for not having Charlie Mueller’s physical ugliness, recent Charlie’s angel, excuse me, recent FBI Director Comey’s style had been a good match for the criminal ugliness of his mentor. Both are expert at sandbagging and sinking investigations into mega-bucks criminal enterprises.
Well, that was short and not so sweet, bringing us to the same DoJ cesspool, excuse me, criminal talent pool, and its producing present FBI Director Christopher Wray. Now, suppose you’re the 3rd Bush aligned senior DoJ criminal division staff that will move on to head up the FBI, and some poor sap has opened up the super-sized menu of maggots called the Novation investigation concerning multiple billions in Medicare fraud [8]. The problem here is, the Novation case implicates Bush Jr Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, a former member of a law firm representing Novation, and future presidential wannabe & presidential brother Jeb Bush. So, future FBI Director Wray’s subordinates, DoJ criminal division Novation case team members, Thelma Colbert & Shannon Ross, are ‘dropped dead’ (remember ‘poppa’ Bush is former career CIA), the rest of the investigating team is reassigned, resigned or fired and that’s that.
[8] “USA [United States Attorney] Thelma Louise Quince Colbert, the head of FCA Act investigations in the Ft. Worth Office of the US Attorney for the Northern District of Texas who had initiated the False Claims Act prosecution of Cynthia Fitzgerald’s charges against Novation LLC was found dead in her swimming pool by her daughter on July 20, 2004.
“The Criminal Chief of the Dallas U.S. Attorney’s office Shannon K. Ross who signed the subpoenas against Novation LLC, General Electric, and Cardinal Health in the government case against the hospital supply cartel was found dead September 11, 2004.
“Based on the federal codes cited in a copy of one of the subpoenas, the investigators were seeking evidence of health care fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States, theft or bribery involving programs receiving federal funds, obstruction of investigations and other possible violations”
The preceding quote is from a letter by a private attorney who was stepped on by the deep state; the letter is addressed to past FBI Director Mueller’s buddy & recent FBI Director Comey, asking him to investigate the inside fix covering up crimes including the murders of two of then DoJ criminal division chief and present FBI Director Wray’s subordinates. ‘Hope springs eternal’ is the apropos expression. It’s kind of like asking Tex Watson to investigate Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian, and Patricia Krenwinkel. In other words, it’s like asking the Manson family to investigate themselves, only worse.
^ Click on image to get ‘official’ story
So, who is the bigger criminal, Charlie Manson or Robert Mueller? In a way, they’re indistinguishable. In another way, Mueller is the greater criminal, by far. They are indistinguishable in that both are killers whose accountability is by implication; both are often (Manson) or altogether (Mueller) physically removed from the crimes they must be held accountable for. The similarity ends there. Manson is the minor criminal when compared to Mueller. Manson is tied to the deaths of maybe a dozen people with perhaps as many additional murders yet to be discovered. Mueller is tied to the murders of hundreds.
Then, Mueller, Comey and Wray, the lot of them, are responsible for covering up the murders of a cartel hit-man. How is that not equal to or exceeding the crimes of Manson?
[9] “In “How to Get Away with Murder in America,” the celebrated journalist Evan Wright reveals the extraordinary story of Enrique “Ricky” Prado, an alleged killer for a major Miami drug trafficker who was recruited into the CIA. Despite a grand jury subpoena and a mountain of evidence unearthed by a federal task force, Prado was promoted into the agency’s highest echelons and charged with implementing some of the country’s most sensitive post-9/11 counterterrorist operations, including the agency’s secret “targeted assassination unit.” All while staying in close touch with his cocaine-trafficking boss and, evidence suggests, taking part in additional killings for him”
“A mountain of evidence unearthed by a federal task force”, yet no criminal indictments produced over the tenure of three senior DoJ criminal division staff moved on to become FBI Directors and Prado is still killing today. This is result of a deep state insurance policy. The insurer issuing the policy could be called the Grassley/Feinstein Mutual Fund [10] [11], a subsidiary [12] of Prescott Bush & Alan Dulles Partners Limited.
Of course, none of this will be brought out by the Congressional intelligence committees, to collapse the credibility of ‘three amigos’ Special Counsel Mueller, fired Director Comey & present FBI boss Wray to help kill the ‘Russia collusion’ farce; because all parties are complicit and tainted in the cover-up. Grassley wants the DoJ personalities to fall on their swords while Feinstein is besides herself, going crazy, as the investigation into President Skunk implodes around the Steele Dossier. It’s like an exclusive ‘serial-killers only’ swingers’ club where everybody is tired of the limited opportunity at couplings, yet their sex addiction requires everyone screwing everyone out of habit and everyone hates everyone’s guts. At some point, the entire crew will resort to some new mass murder, like initiating war with Iran, to get it all back on track.
Welcome to DC.
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Note: The Bush family has a status as gods within the operational sector (dirty tricks division) of the CIA. They’re also ‘Never Trump’ Republicans. My hypothesis is, the entire ‘the Russians did it’ hysteria in DC is a related CIA exercise aimed at Trump. The agency is expert at ‘backstopping’ it’s clandestine operations and the DoJ had been set up as patsies in case the operation began falling apart. It probably went down something like this; the agency set up and fed allegations into a feedback loop between Christopher Steele and the Department of Justice/FBI and then stepped out of the loop. This likely was initiated within the DNC Hillary faction who were misinformed as to the actual culprit in the so-called DNC ‘hack’ [13]. These people took the bait and ran with it, right into the arms of a CIA liaised Fusion GPS sub-contracted British spook Christopher Steele who in turn fed the Clintonistas at DoJ what they wanted to hear and they lapped it up like shit-eating dogs. But it didn’t unseat Trump because the generals saw their chance to consolidate power of the Pentagon, over a more or less neo-liberal CIA, at the White House and they didn’t buy in. Consequently, it could go something like this: When our Christian Taliban generals are satisfied with their grip on power [14], in the case of Trump initiating a conflict in Iran and the generals become indispensable (but only following an inept commander-in-chief’s orders), look for the generals to step out of the way and open the door to Trump’s removal for starting the war they ‘didn’t really want.’ Meanwhile Trump is a perfect idiot to front up and take the heat for anything/everything that might possibly go wrong as he hands what’s left of the USA over to the military-industrial corporate boards.
A former Special Forces Sergeant of Operations and Intelligence, Ronald Thomas West is a retired investigator (living in exile) whose work focus had been anti-corruption. Ronald is published in International Law as a layman (The Mueller-Wilson Report, co-authored with Dr Mark D Cole) and has been adjunct professor of American Constitutional Law at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany (for English credit, summer semester 2008.) Ronald’s formal educational background (no degree) is social psychology. His therapeutic device is satire.
The wheel is indeed empty, or certainly devoid of truth. Marcy Wheeler at ’emptywheel’ blog believes “the Russians did it”, but there are so many holes in the ‘DNC hack’ story, a government embraced CIA generated conspiracy theory (one that’s going to backfire), Niagara Falls couldn’t keep that sieve filled; no matter intelligence agencies across the spectrum [2] [3] [4] of the liberal democracies are trying to pull the American intelligence agency’s chestnuts out of the fire, Russian hackers here, Russian Hackers there, evil Russian hackers everywhere!
To begin, we only need dissect one short article where Wheeler asserts ‘the Russians did it’ in her:
Why Is Russia Finally Letting (Dubious) Details of Its Involvement in DNC Hack Out?
December 12, 2017 by emptywheel
In recent days there have been a number of stories in Russia implicating the FSB (note, not GRU) in issues related to the DNC hack. First, there was this article from The Bell, claiming that the four Russian treason defendants (two of whom were FSB officers) are being prosecuted because they provided inside information to the US about GRU’s involvement in the DNC hack.
“But it is impossible to identify which specific cyber group or groups were responsible for last year’s Democratic National Committee hack based on technical traces alone, four cyber experts polled by The Bell confirmed. To prove specifically that the GRU was involved, U.S. investigators would have needed inside sources — preferably with access to confidential state matters, one source explained. Mikhailov had that access.
“Relations between intelligence agencies working on the cyber front were strained, one of Mikhailov’s acquaintances said. The FSB and GRU compete for funding and Mikhailov felt the FSB carried out cyber tasks more professionally than the GRU, according to one of his acquaintances.
“He used to say that “the GRU breaks into servers in a brazen, clumsy, and brutish manner and it interfered with his own work”, the acquaintance said. Moreover “the GRU’s hackers didn’t even try to cover their tracks””
The report said that Sergei Mikhailov — who was named (but not charged) the Yahoo hack case — shared information on Russian hackers who wouldn’t work with the FSB with western law enforcement agencies though a cut-out named Kimberly Zenz.
“Mikhailov had been working closely with Western intelligence agencies since 2010. Report written for Vrublevsky said that Mikhailov had leaked sensitive information “on Russian cyber-criminals, who had refused to cooperate with him, to a U.S. citizen”. More specifically, Mikhailov reportedly handed the U.S. citizen — a woman — information on Russian state-sponsored hacker attacks against Estonia and Georgia in 2007 and 2008.
“Burykh says he found that Mikhailov gave the information to Stoyanov, who then passed it on to Kimberly Zenz of the U.S. company iDefense Intelligence. From there, it went to the U.S. Department of Defense”
This 1st (immediate preceding) portion of Wheeler’s article is ok to set up her premise but is mostly notable for one omitted fact; her source, The Bell, is politically aligned with Russia’s most fringe anti-Putin liberal elements, led by the former nationalist turned liberal (western media darling & color revolution hopeful) Alexi Navalny.
Then there’s this story, reporting that a hacker tied to the Lurk group, Konstantin Kozlovsky, hacked the DNC on behalf of the FSB.
Following on this (immediate, preceding) linked story, which is mostly notable for its brevity and rehashing The Bell reporting but referencing another Russian liberal fringe (Navalny aligned) anti-Putin media outlet, Dozhd TV, introduces the name Konstantin Kozlovsky and it’s then we come to the real cheat in Wheeler’s reporting and where in her article things get really interesting:
Then there’s this, from Novaya Gazeta, laying out the news.
This immediate, preceding linked article is, again, the Russian liberal fringe or, Navalny aligned anti-Putin media but perhaps the most credible of the fringe liberal media. The article is in Russian language. It is long, complex, and it certainly does NOT lay out any news, despite Wheeler’s word play on the expression ‘lay out the facts.’ It is most notable for numerous points Wheeler omits to mention. The article’s author, Irek Murtazin, is very careful to emphasize, throughout, nearly everything he is writing is speculation. He mentions there is more than one version of his story. He begins his article with a disclaimer, pointing out almost nothing is known with any certainty, concerning the evidence or any facts surrounding the charges concerning those arrested. He proposes the American version of events is possible but doesn’t give this much credence. He uses many self-referring terms concerning his article’s content that can be translated variously as ‘my impression’, ‘a possibility’, ‘my opinion’ and more. This is a context most westerners will have no ability to discover for themselves and Wheeler construes this for her readers to be “laying out the news”
Notably, Murtazin admits the (keep reading) Konstantin Kozlovsky Facebook profile and posting could be a creation of “foreign security service” (implying CIA or other western intelligence) but he prefers to believe it is a Russian security service creation intended for manipulation and/or damage control. Murtazin’s article clearly indicates this is his opinion only and he has no hard facts to back these presumptions up. He even has his unnamed security services sources specifying ‘possibly’ or ‘it could be.’
NG [Novaya Gazeta, but actually Irek Murtazin’s opinion piece, Wheeler fails to make this distinction] questions — as I do — why this is all coming out now. Of particular interest, it notes that Kozlovsky’s claims were posted in August, but for some reason the hashtags that would have alerted people to the posted claim were not triggering, meaning the information only got noticed (at least in Russia) now.
This (immediate, preceding) omits Murtazin having pointed out Konstantin Kozlovsky had been held in a facility so secure ‘a mouse’ could not leave or arrive unregistered. This is important to note for the fact these may in fact not be (almost certainly are not) Kozlovsky’s claims at all. The impression Wheeler would leave with the inattentive is, the idea there is actual substance to Kozlovsky’s ‘Facebook claims’ when in fact there likely is no substantive element. Wheeler then quotes Murtazin:
“Interestingly, the first materials on this page were posted back in August of this year. And despite the fact that sensational publications were accompanied by tags # CIB, # FSB, # Dokoutchaev, # Mikhailov # Stoyanov, # hackers, # Kaspersky, the existence of a personal page Kozlovsky in Facebook for some reason became known only in early December”
Reinforcing her misleading the reader, Wheeler doesn’t openly or clearly state, or accurately interpret material posited in Murtazin’s article, pointing to the most likely possible of facts; the sound idea Kozlovsky, the imprisoned person, never had anything to do with setting up his own Facebook page. Then:
Here’s the timeline we’re currently being presented with (I’ve made some additions):
“April 28, 2015: FSB accesses Lurk servers with Kaspersky’s help.
“May 18, 2016: Kozlovsky arrest.
“May 19-25, 2016: DNC emails shared with WikiLeaks likely exfiltrated.
“November 1, 2016: Date of Kozlovsky confession.
“December 5, 2016: Arrest, for treason, of FSB officers.
“August 14, 2017: Kozlovsky posts November 1 confession of hacking DNC on Facebook.
“December 2, 2017: Kozlovsky’s claims posted on his Facebook page.
Note Wheeler does not specify which “additions” are hers, in the preceding, although (at her site) Wheeler attributes the timeline to Murtazin with a blockquote. She previously only uses blockquotes for portions of articles she cites (I’ve added quotation marks where Wheeler is quoting with blockquote at her article, as her entire article is reproduced here in blockquote for purpose of this discussion.) Nowhere in Murtazin’s article does a timeline appear in form Wheeler presents as a quote:
Then Wheeler speculates:
Of particular note, the emails exfiltrated from the DNC and shared with WikiLeaks were probably not exfiltrated until the days immediately after Kozlovsky’s arrest.
Where on earth did Wheeler come up with this? Now, she would have us believe the DNC mails hack was accomplished following Kozlovsky’s arrest, in which case the ‘confession’ posted at Facebook cannot possibly be passed off as accurate, the context and language of the proposed confession precludes this. Is Wheeler insinuating Kozlovsky hacked the DNC from maximum security prison, with a gun to his head, and attempting to attribute this to Murtazin? Finally, Wheeler concludes…
As NG [Murtazin’s opinion piece, actually] notes, this all may well be true (though I wonder why Russia is now letting claims it was involved in the DNC hack go public, after claiming it was uninvolved for so long). But the reason it is coming out now is at least as interesting that it is coming out.
…and her “may well be true” consistently ignores Murtazin has emphasized, not only throughout his article, but particularly in its conclusion, this is entirely speculation absent hard facts (noting none of the prosecution files are public), and his admission of this cannot take into account Wheeler’s twisting of his theory (Murtazin presents his piece as nothing more than a theory), her additions and most notably, omissions. Then, Wheeler can wonder for all of eternity (for her readers’ suggestion susceptible minds) “I wonder why Russia is now letting claims it was involved in the DNC hack go public” when in fact it has not been demonstrated Russia has done any such thing. This is Murtazin speculating, nothing more, coming from a disgruntled former mainstream Russian journalist with the integrity of 10,000 Marcy Wheelers with his admission amounting to ‘I made this all up, maybe it will prove true’ (but it certainly won’t, see section two of this post.) In fact, there is greater chance (even if very slim) the arrests of the Kapersky lab figure and the Russian secret services officers are coincidental and unrelated to the arrest of Kozlovsky, than there is chance (practically none) Kozlovsky hacked the DNC servers. For all we know, the FSB officers arrests & treason charges could relate to corruption concerning the billions of rubles the LURK hacking group had stolen from Russia. Anyone can speculate anything at a point where no one really knows what the evidence is concerning those charged. In the end, the most notable omission of Wheeler is, Murtazin’s theory does not implicate Putin, but proposes a possibility that would point to far down the chain of command, to a mid-level, American spy service directed, traitor embedded in Russia’s FSB; ordering the DNC hack to [apparently] frame the Russians. How’d Wheeler miss that? She couldn’t have. The damning piece of Wheeler’s article is as simple as its’ title; “Why Is Russia Finally Letting (Dubious) Details of Its Involvement in DNC Hack Out?” The plain answer is, Russia hasn’t. Novaya Gazeta, publishing this far-fetched speculation, is certainly not acting on behalf of the Russian state.
Marcy Wheeler is one of the slickest, most underhanded so-called ‘journalists’ this investigator has ever encountered. She comes off as a master propagandist, fully engaged in running a professional ‘limited hangout’ or information operation promoting the USA’s intelligence services line. Her target audience is what I’d call the ‘marginally mainstream alienated’ seeking to know what is actually happening. Those people are both; too often convinced and horribly misinformed.
Note on my methodology: I did not rely on google translate (never a good idea, although I do use this tool to become familiar with the overall gist of a story in foreign language.) In order to actually understand the Russian article by Murtazin, I arranged on three occasions to sit with one of my (several) Russian literate associates, to get at accuracy and the nuance of what Murtazin was trying to say. Once before this composition and twice again following this composition.
Incidental to this, I’m informed the Kozlovsky ‘confession’ (reproduced in the Novaya Gazeta opinion piece by Murtazin) reads in the original Russian like a hybrid geek spy novel/Russian suspense thriller movie trailer, with all of the elements of a criminal-turned-unlucky-super-hero plot; where the protagonist turned world savior Kozlovsky had been served with a task list of saving us all from the liberal democracies most extreme paranoid cyber-fantasies. The remark was made “they should give this to Spielberg” and this Russian literate friend is not a Putin fan. It follows, Central Intelligence Agency can never provide proper screen credit to its writers, for reason of plausible deniability as it were.
Also, it is noticed Murtazin’s bias is palpable; when Murtazin refers to Russia’s Federal Security Bureau (FSB) as ‘The Lubyanka‘ (a historic Moscow jail and museum where FSB has an office) to associate today’s FSB with Stalin’s political crimes (the comparison is not close.) This is not how you win friends and influence people (or change the system.)
Wrapping up this section on the emptywheel (which reads like an intelligence agency contracted) hit job, we come to question of Marcy Wheeler’s motive, in her ability to take advantage of her readers vulnerability where examples given…
…’cz’ is the ‘comfort zone’ and the V in the center represents ‘psychological sight.’ As a metaphor, we can say, the eyes are at the point (bottom) of the V and people who depend on certain media and consequent shaped, narrow perception, have their field of vision contained or restricted within the V or comfort zone. The point of working through media to shape perception is to keep the large majority of people inside the ‘comfort zone’, insuring trust in (no matter if undeserved), and support for, geopolitical policy (no matter how insane.) In the event Wheeler, with her habit of sourcing Operation Mockingbird 2.0‘s WaPo & NYT, were herself manipulated (narcissists are brilliant material for this), I’ll be following up on that with a forthcoming satire. Meanwhile, anyone desiring an unbiased take on what’s actually happening, politically, inside Russia by an author who is not socially engineering his material, is not in love with Putin but understands Putin’s method’s better than most, I recommend a read of analyst Gordon Hahn’s assessment HERE.
Section Two: Incompetent Espionage and Wikileaks
This section is substantially unchanged since it had been posted as “Incompetent Espionage & Wikileaks (III).” It still holds up:
Let me assure you, the DNC hack wasn’t even a hack. It was an insider with a memory stick. I know this because I know who did it and why. Special Counsel Mueller is not interested in my evidence. My lawyers wrote to him twice. He never replied. 360 pounds!https://t.co/AGRO0sFx7shttps://t.co/epXtv0t1uN
“Under this deal, which was reported by the Wall Street Journal, Assange would provide conclusive proof that Russia was not the source of hacked emails WikiLeaks published. In return, he would be offered a pardon, or some other assurance that he wouldn’t be prosecuted by the US for involvement in WikiLeaks.
“Rohrabacher brought this deal to the White House Wednesday [13 September 2017], but Chief of Staff John Kelly not only apparently didn’t like the offer, but didn’t tell President Trump that the offer had been made, instead telling Rohrabacher to take the proposal to the intelligence community.
“The intelligence community almost certainly wouldn’t be in a position to offer any sort of amnesty for Assange, which likely means the end of the proposal. Rohrabacher offered to set up a meeting between Assange and a Trump representative, but that too appears to have been dismissed by Kelly”
So, the generals keep Trump sequestered like the Vatican keeps a rampant pedophile priest under wraps; away from any real work and responsibilities (in this case, kept from knowledge of what’s actually going on in the world.) But now, with the Wall Street Journal blowing the whistle, Ivanka should soon be whispering in her daddy’s ear; and what will tell you everything is, what happens next. Suppose Trump keeps his mouth shut and says nothing? This will indicate the absolute completion of the Pence aligned generals capture of the Oval Office.
But the real news here is, Assange provides evidence of his belief that he is personally more important than any unconditional release of information which should stop the Pentagon and NATO’s pursuit of a war footing directed at Russia in its tracks.
Narcissism? Is there a stronger word? Julian Assange, who fancies himself ‘Jesus of the Digital Age’ would appear to be tired of bearing his cross. The Roman’s puppet, King Herod, hasn’t been authorized to provide the pardon and Pontius Pilate’s (read Mike Pompeo’s) people will deliver Jesus of the Digital Age to crucifixtion on behalf of the ‘duopoly’ mob, to satisfy their blood lust. Good luck with the world’s biggest ‘deal-maker’ (read loser) Wikileaks, because you blew it by waiting too long.
The entire sand-castle (a product of Obama CIA Director John Brennan’s imagination facilitated by the ‘Never Trump’ Bush partisans at CIA’s dirty tricks division) the “Russians hacked the election” is finally washing away with an incoming tide. How this plays out is anyone’s guess.
The open question is, how the new information will be leveraged, if it were to actually break into the open widely, with the bad boy Trump essentially captured by the surreal evil that surrounds him. Other than pure evil (e.g. Pence), only a narcissist or a fool would ever desire to be president of this particular republic. In ‘The Donald’, we have both.
1 August 2017 an audio tape is leaked in which Seymour Hersh states the FBI knows it was Seth Rich leaked the DNC mails:
“What the [FBI] report says is that some time in late Spring… he makes contact with WikiLeaks, that’s in his computer. Anyway, they found what he had done is that he had submitted a series of documents — of emails, of juicy emails, from the DNC” -Seymour Hersh
On 9 August 2017 The Nation magazine publishes a column on a group of independent experts…
“Forensic investigators, intelligence analysts, system designers, program architects, and computer scientists of long experience and strongly credentialed are now producing evidence disproving the official version of key events last year”
…demonstrating the DNC mails were leaked, not hacked.
On 18 August 2017 Antiwar.com reports Congressman Dana Rohrabacher has met with Assange concerning the DNC mails and [the article] further credibly suggests Assange is holding the DNC leak evidence hostage as a bargaining chip to possibly acquire a pardon for himself and leverage wikileaks into legitimacy with a President of the United States who at this point is owned by the USA’s intelligence agencies, a hare-brained scheme destined to fail. Assange & company waited too long.
But this would fit Julian Assange’s self-centered, persecuted-savior complex which never ceases to amaze, this guy (as well, Craig Murray) has allowed the idiots surrounding Trump to push us towards the brink with Russia, for months. All because Assange is tired of his embassy confinement in London, a circumstance that is entirely his own fault for the fact he didn’t have the self-discipline to keep his dick in his pants (whether Assange’s admitted intercourse was a case of rape or not.)
What’s more is, this blog pointed to strong circumstantial evidence it was Seth Rich leaked the DNC mails this past January, and recalling this, it still stretches the imagination a former UK ambassador would make an amateur espionage move worthy of a cub scout playing spy. But that’s what Craig Murray had done in the case of the DNC emails leaked to WikiLeaks.
Seymour Hersh states Seth Rich is the source of the DNC mails. Craig Murray states he had met with the source of the DNC mails. A + B = C:
Craig Murray met with Seth Rich
That Murray would be a high value target for American counter-intelligence to monitor for the reason of his high profile association with WikiLeaks is beyond obvious. For Murray then to state…
“I know who leaked them. I’ve met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not Russian and it’s an insider. It’s a leak, not a hack; the two are different things”
…goes to the practically bizarre when coming from a former United Kingdom ambassador to Uzbekistan. The UK is little different to the USA in the case of embassies providing cover for spies; in which case Murray should at least have some rudimentary espionage understanding such as YOU DO NOT MEET YOUR SOURCE DIRECTLY WHEN YOU ARE A HIGH PROFILE TARGET OF YOUR ADVERSARY’S COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE HUNTING YOUR (in this case, WikiLeaks) SOURCE(S)
Then, we had WikiLeak’s Assange giving what amounts to a ‘Glomar’ ‘I will neither confirm or deny’ response concerning the murder (assassination) of Seth Rich after appearing to suggest Rich was the source of the DNC emails leak:
Beyond this, WikiLeaks offering a $20,000 reward for the solving of the Seth Rich murder is laughable, that’s what an American west coast upscale community would offer for the arrest of a serial killer of the neighborhood’s cats. Two million dollars might get two seconds’ attention of a corruptible counter-intelligence agent with knowledge of a professional hit on Seth Rich, twenty million might even net an inside the agency sucker willing to take the exceedingly high risk to one’s life (almost certain death) that would attend selling out an agency hit man for substantial lucre. In truth, the WikiLeaks reward offer amounted to little more than a tabloid publicity stunt.
Narcissism is a blinding thing; and a self-righteous narcissism is no exception. Ambassador Murray could have every good intention but on the face of it, he had seriously screwed up. Murray and WikiLeaks should have immediately come clean, there was little to lose. Seth Rich was the source, Murray had met with him, and much could have been gained by stating so; there would be nothing given up any intelligence agency involved did not already know. It have been the right thing to do.
Craig Murray stating ‘I had a serious lapse of professional judgement and this resulted in the death of Seth Rich’ would be the most responsible and newsworthy move WikiLeaks could have taken; to counter the CIA’s ‘the Russians hacked the DNC’ propaganda lie, in which there is much invested by the agency; and the consequent damage to relations with Russia, and growing threat to what little world peace yet exists, is immense. WikiLeaks should have done the right thing a long time ago and they have not. Why not? Because Assange and WikiLeaks believes Assange’s comfort is more important than world peace. What fucks. This is beyond inexcusable, it’s criminal. But for Murray, there’s more at stake here than just a hit to ego & image.
Murray’s likely role in the DNC leaks case? A personal meeting with Rich to confirm for WikiLeaks Seth Rich was a bona fide insider with authentic material prior to a WikiLeaks cash payment to Rich and arrangements completed for the mails transfer.
Now, it is a question of ‘damned if you do and damned if you don’t’ release the evidence because WikiLeaks waited too long, and let the criminals surrounding Trump consolidate their power while investing deeply in the myth of the Russians hacked the election; a criminal cabal that will up the ante on the world stage to any level necessary to avoid accountability. WikiLeaks Idiots. WikiLeaks Morons.
Meanwhile, Murray subsequently barred from the United States (except that he applies for a visa, typically unnecessary for a British citizen) appears to have been, in a manner of speaking, a deep state message to Murray: ‘thank you very much for the lapse of judgement, we have taken full advantage with the assassination of Seth Rich and we won’t be requiring your services after this’ (he’d be smart to stay away.)
The really sticky problem for WikiLeaks in this scenario is, Seymour Hersh asserts in the recorded call WikiLeaks had paid Rich for the leaked documents, damaging or reducing to element of pretense WikiLeaks claims of journalism & providing rationale for deep state prosecutors & judges to find this had been straightforward espionage. But they won’t do it if the Rich-Murray meeting stays buried, a LOT is invested in ‘the Russians did it’ for the public consumption. If it DOES break open, Murray’s ‘goose is cooked.’ It’s now not only WikiLeaks problem in a larger sense, but Murray’s, whether he does or doesn’t admit the assassinated Seth Rich had been the DNC mails source.
Ronald Thomas West 