CNN’s ‘Exclusive’ Report on Russia Arming Taliban Debunked By Their Own Expert—Exposed as Propaganda

Atlanta, GA – In just the latest example of CNN operating as a deep state propaganda outlet, on July 25, the cable news network published a bombastic report; releasing two exclusive videos intimating that the Russian government was covertly arming the Taliban, which has returned to significant prominence in Afghanistan since the 2014 cessation of NATO combat operations.

The large-scale anti-Russia propaganda operation, meant to indoctrinate Americans into a mindset that demonizes Russia as “the enemy,” and Putin as a dictator, has been pushed en masse to the American public at a steady rate since the end of the 2016 election cycle.

The explosive CNN report, which was widely reported across the media landscape, noted that two separate groups of Taliban fighters have received “improved weaponry … that appears to have been supplied by the Russian government.” The weaponry reportedly included Kalashnikov rifles, heavy machine guns, and sniper rifles. And while many of the weapons in the video appear to be of Russian origin, there is nothing to connect the Russian government to the weapons.

While the news made headlines and was shared widely across social media — the problem is that CNN’s report has lots of bark and no bite. Aside from a flashy headline, the report provided no evidence of the Russian government providing or transferring weapons to the Taliban. This was established according to weapons experts from U.S. Special Operations Command and several non-governmental conflict arms organizations.

“I’ve watched the video and frankly can’t see anything that is particularly unusual,” James Bevan, a weapons specialist, and director of Conflict Armament Research Ltd, told Task & Purpose in an email. “There are Russian weapons, and derivatives of those weapons manufactured in other states, circulating among state and non-state groups in every country in that region.”

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According to the report by Task and Purpose:

The weapons experts consulted by Task & Purpose identified the weapons as Kalashnikov variants that have become pervasive among irregular forces; several U.S.-made M249 Squad Automatic Weapons that fire belt-fed 5.56×45mm NATO rounds, including a mid-90s variant with a long barrel and fixed rifle stock and the lightweight MK-49 paratrooper variant with a stub barrel; the TT-30 Tokarev pistol that’s been a staple of the Russian military since the 1930s, and the Soviet-made 7.62 mm general-purpose PK machine gun that’s been in service since 1961.

None of these weapons touted by the Taliban in the CNN video appear particularly modern, and all but the M249 are regular fixtures of the illicit small arms markets that accounted for 60 percent of the weapons flowing into and out of Afghanistan in the decades leading up to the U.S.-led invasion in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

“I suspect after years in Afghanistan, these are easy to get,” Capt. Jason Salata, said.

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Additionally, the CNN report never establishes any type of chain of custody between Russia and the Taliban. Perhaps more importantly, they never noted that one of the Taliban groups had pillaged the equipment from a rival Taliban faction, while the other received a shipment of arms from across the Tajikistan border. CNN admits that the videos presented as “suggesting” a link between the Taliban and Moscow “don’t provide incontrovertible proof of the trade.”

Yet, somehow, they still attempt to stir the anti-Russia media pot and suggest the weapons could be the work of the Russian government. In reality, however, these types of weapons are readily available on the black market across the globe.

“There is nothing immediately visible to suggest the weapons are new or any indication (from the footage) that they are all of the same type and origin,” according to Bevan. “Governments that supply rebel and insurgent forces rarely supply new weapons and frequently refrain from supplying their own weapons stocks. This makes any connection between the manufacturing country and the supplier country problematic.”

Thus the CNN report, which notes that the weaponry appears “stripped of any means of identifying their origin,” essentially relies on the claims of a few Taliban members as the basis for the entire report.

“Unfortunately, CNN did not fully profile erased markings and other efforts to sanitize the weapons,” Bevan added. “This would be a clear indication of organized, state involvement, but also would be unlikely to incriminate any party without further evidence.”

In typical propaganda fashion, every arms expert in the CNN story was a Pentagon or Afghan government official, except for Benjamin King from the Small Arms Survey independent research group, who bluntly told CNN that the photos and videos he was given to analyze contained virtually no evidence of a recent arms transfer, let alone being able to attribute it to a specific state – such as Russia.

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“[CNN] made some jumps that you certainly can’t make from the weapons themselves,” King told Task & Purpose. “I certainly wouldn’t have made the claim that they were new imports. The generic Tokarev pistols and PK machine guns are old and could have been there for a long time. One of the rifles was an AK-74, so it could have been there for the last 40 years or so.”

Of course, the U.S. military need only look in the mirror should they want to understand the flow of foreign armaments into Afghanistan, as a declassified Pentagon audit from 2016 revealed that almost half of the 1.5 million firearms supplied to the Iraqi and Afghani military, including almost 1 million M4 and M16s, have turned up ‘missing’ due to shoddy record keeping and regulations.

Even more damning, in 2014, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction released a report that found that nearly 43% of arms provided to the Afghan National Security Forces likely ended up in the hands of ISIS or the Taliban.

In just the past few weeks, American and Afghan military personnel have faced off with modern weaponry and equipment in enemy hands. Afghan security forces are increasingly facing off against Taliban fighters armed with M4 carbines outfitted with night vision, infrared laser sights and Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight scopes, according to a July 25 report in the Military Times.

Additionally, a recent propaganda video released by the Taliban appeared to show an FN SCAR (Special Operations Forces Combat Assault Rifle) 7.62mm rifle decked out with a AN/PEQ 5 visible laser, which was likely procured during an ambush or raid on a weapons depot.

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“Afghanistan is swimming in guns,” King told Task & Purpose. “These things are expected to show up everywhere.”

Many of these weapons are not Russian made, but instead, are usually deployed by Western militaries — and, like everything else in Afghanistan, they end up in Taliban hands sooner rather than later.

But CNN’s report conveniently fails to mention any of this, and attempts to prop up the demonization campaign against Russia, as a likely pretext to gain public support in the methodical and ongoing movement towards a direct conflict with the Russia.

Mainstream Media’s Russian/Aide Story is Fake News by Their Own Definition

Corporate media pulled off the previously impossible yet again in reports from the New York Times and CNN claiming aides and associates of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign maintained close contact with Russia throughout his campaign — but the accusatory tone of the report simply isn’t backed by evidence.

“Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials,” the Times reported Tuesday, adding, “it is not unusual for American businessmen to come in contact with foreign intelligence officials, sometimes unwittingly, in countries like Russia and Ukraine, where the spy services are deeply embedded in society.”

And, even further to the point, “It is also unclear whether the conversations had anything to do with Mr. Trump himself.”

CNN adds, “Both the frequency of the communications during early summer and the proximity to Trump of those involved ‘raised a red flag’ with US intelligence and law enforcement, according to these officials. The communications were intercepted during routine intelligence collection targeting Russian officials and other Russian nationals known to US intelligence.”

Incidentally, CNN notes, “The communications were gathered as part of routine US intelligence collection and not because people close to Trump were being targeted.”

Notice the stultifying ambiguity — so typical of similar mainstream media reports on other topics without basis — where unnamed officials cite alleged reports unavailable for the public and press to vet; and bluster replaces solid evidence.

Each outlet casts sufficient doubt on their reports as to make one wonder how editors at the New York Times and CNN gave their publication the green light — that is, until further examination reveals the actual motivation for doing so.

After all, this is not journalism. This is propaganda. Fake news at its most manipulative — reigniting Americans’ fears from the last Cold War to ensure a constant state of suspicion, bolster the case for continued stockpiling of military weapons, and a solid enemy beyond our own government to whom we can point the finger of blame.

“All of the current and former officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the continuing investigation is classified,” the Times declared.

Of course, it conveniently is.

Also typical for mainstream media’s recent spate of unsubstantiated reports, contradictory information buried in plain sight belies that the outlets know the information covered is of a highly dubious nature — yet, without hesitation, the accusations make their way through editors to publishing.

“Officials emphasized that communications between campaign staff and representatives of foreign governments are not unusual,” CNN reported, defusing altogether the explosiveness of its claims. “However, these communications stood out to investigators due to the frequency and the level of the Trump advisers involved. Investigators have not reached a judgment on the intent of those conversations. […]

“These officials cautioned the Russians could have been exaggerating their access.”

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Similarly, the Times noted, “The officials interviewed in recent weeks said that, so far, they had seen no evidence of such cooperation.”

Officials in the Trump administration vociferously denied the allegations of collusion with Russia. Paul Manafort, who worked on Trump’s campaign and as a political consultant in Ukraine — and the only aide named in the reports — called the accusations “absurd,” and told the Times by phone,

“I have no idea what this is referring to. I have never knowingly spoken to Russian intelligence officers, and I have never been involved with anything to do with the Russian government or the Putin administration or any other issues under investigation today.

“It’s not like these people wear badges that say, ‘I’m a Russian intelligence officer.’”

In fact, the reports were so feeble, the leading notorious purveyor of fake news, itself — the Washington Post — sardonically excoriated both media organizations for lacking any on-the-record evidence.

These were the "smoking gun" reports that Very Serious people just spent the last 24 hours screaming about https://t.co/8K8QVa8Tnh pic.twitter.com/AHwXeMnrg8

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) February 15, 2017

“There’s very little good news for President Trump these days,” the Post’s Callum Borchers wrote Wednesday. “His White House is dealing with not one but two (!) explosive reports that his aides and associates were in contact with Russian intelligence officials during the campaign. But there is one bright spot for Trump: Both of the stories use zero on-the-record sources to back up their claims.”

As Borchers also points out, reports like these — in a situation amid ongoing investigation — could legitimately still be too classified to make public. And while that’s a perfectly legitimate argument for officials to remain anonymous, it equally allows the unhindered dissemination of politically-motivated information — whether or not proof backs up the claims.

Panic and fear our national security has somehow been thwarted by a big, evil State is the business of foreign policy and the military-industrial machine — and if the new president won’t play the game, the players in charge must game the system to manipulate the public.

An unfettered anti-Russia propaganda campaign has gripped corporate media for months, ratcheting up when Hillary Clinton lost in a supposed shocker of an election.

But Trump’s promises to mend diplomatic relations with Moscow provided the fuel for the Democratic, neoliberal establishment to conflate his warmth with actual collusion to rig the election — again, without a shred of proof.

We haven’t heard the last of the Trump-Russia tripe — which is how reports like the Times’ and CNN’s must be categorized until actual proof replaces what constitutes so much fiction — because Red Scaremongering has not worn out its use.

WATCH: CNN Cuts Off Bernie Sanders on LIVE TV for Calling CNN Fake News

Bernie Sanders is the latest in a growing list of people to be CNN’d — that is, to have the mic mysteriously cut during an interview — when the former presidential candidate dared to barb the outlet as Fake News.

CNN anchor Erin Burnett interviewed Sanders on the incendiary contention concerning National Security Advisor General Michael Flynn’s phone call with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, and whether or not sanctions and cooperation were discussed — before President Trump took office.

After then showing Sanders a clip of Trump stating he had not heard about the Flynn controversy, Burnett asked,

“[Trump] says he knows nothing about it, hasn’t seen any of these reports. Um … is that a problem?”

“Well I don’t know,” Sanders replies. “Maybe he was watching CNN fake news. What do you think?”

Visibly shaken Burnett looks down and fumbles with papers for a moment before Sanders clarifies, “It was a joke!”

“I, I know it was a joke,” she stammers. “I’m saying you don’t buy what he said obviously.”

But that implied question goes unanswered, and it becomes apparent Sanders’ mic has been cut, when he asks, “Erin?”

Burnett repeats herself, but at this point, the ugliness of using ‘technical difficulties’ as a weapon to silence interviewees not in direct alignment with CNN is plain to see — Sanders dared deem the vanilla media behemoth Fake News, albeit perhaps in jest.

Worse, he delivered the ill-fated joke just one day after CNN’s Chris Cuomo somehow thought it would be wise to equate the derogatory and propagandic term Fake News with a racial slur.

“‘Fake news’ is the worst thing you can call a journalist,” Cuomo asserted. “It’s like an ethnic disparagement. You know, we all have these ugly words for people and that’s the one for journalists.”

On radio, he repeated and worsened the absurd comparison, saying, “I see being called ‘fake news’ as the equivalent of the ‘n-word’ for journalists, the equivalent of calling an Italian any of the ugly words that people have for that ethnicity. That’s what ‘fake news’ is to a journalist.”

It’s safe, and quite ironic, to say CNN has issues with Fake News — perhaps due to its history of reporting falsehoods, fabrications, and questionable information. Technical difficulties seem to step in when the truth hurts.

Sanders’ mic being cut, of course, is not the first time CNN pulled the plug on a guest at a suspiciously opportune moment — and these timely technological mishaps would be downright comical did they not evince a penchant for censorship.

During election season in July, CNN cut the feed of a reporter who had the gall to criticize Hillary Clinton — reminding the savvy precisely why the network often earns the nickname, the Clinton News Network, for its loyalty to the former presidential candidate.

Senior political correspondent Brianna Keilar ventured into verboten territory when she attempted to criticize Hillary’s unbridled support for former President Bill Clinton’s fraught 1994 crime bill, which ushered in the era of mass incarceration and for-profit prisons.

CNN promptly pulled the plug on Keilar in mid-sentence.

Then, in October, pro-Trump Congressman Chris Collins waded into deep waters by criticizing Hillary Clinton — but guaranteed his time on air would be limited when he added a key term: Wikileaks.

CNN’s perfect video and audio immediately failed.

Although CNN isn’t alone in the business of pulling the plug on guests who step over the staunch but invisible line, its technical difficulties are among the worst.

The following video is a compilation of CNN and MSNBC yanking the platform out from under those expressing truths they find untenable:

Fake news: CNN guest laughably claims Berkeley rioters were right-wingers

Robert Reich (PROHarvardEthics/Flickr)

(INTELLIHUB) — In the very definition of fake news, CNN recently aired laughably false comments by UC Berkeley professor and former Democratic Secretary of Labor Robert Reich about the violent riots on the liberal campus.

Reich, already a widely known anti-Trump operative, went straight down the rabbit hole of absurdity by claiming that “right-wingers” were actually behind the riots that specifically targeted Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos.

“I was there for part of last night and I know what I saw and those people were not Berkeley students,” Reich said. “Those people were outside agitators. I have never seen them before.”

Reich continued, “There’s rumors that they actually were right-wingers. They were a part of a kind of group that was organized and ready to create the kind of tumult and danger you saw that forced the police to cancel the event.”

Lemon, barely able to contain himself and of course doing nothing to stop these purposefull lies, then ludicrously asked if the riots were a strategy by Milo and or right-wingers.

Reich’s response was classic corporate media disinformation.

“I wouldn’t bet against it,” Reich responded. “I saw these people. They all looked very, almost paramilitary. They were not from the campus. I don’t want to say factually, but I’ve heard there was some relationship here between these people and the right-wing movement that is affiliated with Breitbart News.”

In response to this nonsense, Paul Joseph Watson put it best by writing, “Reich’s absurd comments shouldn’t even be dignified with a rebuttal, suffice to say that the same black-clad Antifa leftists have been rioting their way through cities up and down the country for weeks, including at Donald Trump’s inauguration in Washington DC. Was that all a secret right-wing plot too?”

As we have repeatedly stated, this is truly an information war for the very fabric of the country and Reich is simply doing his job of continuing the establishment side disinformation operation.

©2017. INTELLIHUB.COM. All Rights Reserved.

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Trump declares war on MSM and corrupt intelligence operatives helping them

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(INTELLIHUB) — In an extraordinary sequence of events, President-elect Donald Trump has declared full-scale war against the “fake news” corporate media and the intelligence operatives helping them to spread their disinformation.

Just one day after Buzzfeed and CNN reported on the laughable outright disinformation contained in a “dossier” compiled by a former British intelligence operative and Democratic opposition researcher, Trump held a press conference where he destroyed CNN for their fake news as well as revealed that he conducted his own sting operation into leaks by the intelligence community.

During the press conference, Trump first took shots at the pathetic disinformation spread by Buzzfeed, saying, “Buzzfeed which is a failing pile of garbage will suffer the consequences.”

He then moved on to CNN which had earlier Tuesday given Buzzfeed the apparent cover it needed to actually publish the entire dossier.

CNN “reporter” Jim Acosta asked Trump if he would give CNN a question since he was “attacking them”.

Trump’s response was an instant classic.

“I’m not going to give you a question,” Trump responded. “Don’t be rude. I’m not going to give you a question. You are fake news!”.

After destroying the corrupt, intelligence community supported mainstream media, Trump revealed that he had actually conducted a sting operation of his own that ended up proving that intelligence officials were LEAKING his briefings to the mainstream media.

The Daily Mail reported:

President-elect Donald Trump, after growing suspicious that intelligence officials were leaking news about their classified briefings with him, says he conducted a sting operation to try to prove top spies were behind the leaks.

Trump revealed the extraordinary scheme to try to entrap the senior spies in a furious press conference where he suggested the intelligence community had been behind salacious and totally unproven allegations against him.

‘I think it’s pretty sad when intelligence reports get leaked out to the press. First of all, it’s illegal. These are classified and certified meetings and reports,’ Trump said during a press conference at Trump Tower – his first since getting elected.

Then he revealed the details of the stealthy sting he says he conducted on the nation’s senior spooks.

‘I’ll tell you what does happen. I have many meetings with intelligence. And every time I meet, people are reading about it,’ Trump said, possibly referencing reports on his classified briefings, which he has chosen not to receive daily.

‘Somebody’s leaking them out,’ Trump said, after inveighing against leaks generally.

‘So I said, “Maybe it’s my office. Maybe my office.” Because I’ve got a lot of people … Maybe it’s them?’

‘What I did, is I said I won’t tell anyone. I’m going to have a meeting, and I won’t tell anybody about my meeting with intelligence,’ Trump continued.

He even shielded one of his closest aides from word of the meeting.

‘Nobody knew – not even Rhoda, my executive assistant for years. She didn’t know – I didn’t tell her. Nobody knew,’ Trump continued.

Having set the trap, Trump says the word leaked anyway

‘The meeting was held. They left, and immediately the word got out that I had a meeting. So, I don’t want that. It’s very unfair to the country. It’s very unfair to our country what’s happening,’ he said.

We are truly witnessing the intelligence community literally work with the corporate media in an attempt to directly destroy the elected incoming president.

This unprecedented attack on our democracy was detailed in an extremely important report by journalist Glenn Greenwald in which he declared that the “deep state” was directly going after Trump.

Greenwald wrote:

Dwight Eisenhower delivered his farewell address after serving two terms as U.S. president; the five-star general chose to warn Americans of this specific threat to democracy: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” That warning was issued prior to the decadelong escalation of the Vietnam War, three more decades of Cold War mania, and the post-9/11 era, all of which radically expanded that unelected faction’s power even further.

This is the faction that is now engaged in open warfare against the duly elected and already widely disliked president-elect, Donald Trump. They are using classic Cold War dirty tactics and the defining ingredients of what has until recently been denounced as “Fake News.”

Their most valuable instrument is the U.S. media, much of which reflexively reveres, serves, believes, and sides with hidden intelligence officials. And Democrats, still reeling from their unexpected and traumatic election loss as well as a systemic collapse of their party, seemingly divorced further and further from reason with each passing day, are willing — eager — to embrace any claim, cheer any tactic, align with any villain, regardless of how unsupported, tawdry and damaging those behaviors might be.

This is it folks. We have warned for months that elements of the intelligence community were working with the corporate media to destroy Trump and the events of the last 48 hours conclusively prove this at a level even we didn’t think possible.

Elements of the CIA are DIRECTLY working with the mainstream media to STEAL the election from the American people. This is now a documented fact.

Alex Thomas is a reporter and editor for Intellihub News. He was a founding member of what later became Intellihub.com and an integral part of the team that destroyed the mainstream media blockade on Bilderberg in 2012. You can contact him here.

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