Top Nuclear Official Agrees With Senator Who Says Obama Admin "Misled" On Uranium One Deal

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Kristine Svinicki responded to questions raised by Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) regarding a key aspect of the Uranium One deal, agreeing that the Obama Administration had not "fully depicted" the complexity of the transaction which ultimately gave the Kremlin control over 20% of US uranium. 

“I would note that, as your letter makes clear, the responses you have received have not fully depicted the complexity of this issue” -Kristine Svinicki, NRC Chair

Svinicki"s response fell short of agreeing with Barrasso that he had been "misled" over the deal to export yellowcake uranium from the Senator"s home state of Wyoming out of the country.

Barrasso says he was given "misleading" answers on whether or not Russian mined US uranium would be allowed to leave the country, based on revelations from The Hill which revealed the Obama administration allowed the uranium to leave the country by "piggy-backing" onto an export license held by shipping company, RSB Logistic Services Inc. 

Rep. John Barrasso (R-WY)

In a Monday letter to the NRC and the Energy Department, Barrasso wrote:

Prior to the approval of the sale [of Uranium One], I wrote to then-President Barack Obama registering my strong concerns regarding Russian control over American uranium production facilities and Russia"s ability to ship U.S. uranium overseas. I also requested immediate notification should ARMZ file for a license to export U.S. uranium. Based on information that has recently come to light, I now believe the response I received, and the process by which I received it, were both misleading.

 

On March 21, 2011, former NRC Chairman Greg Jaczko responded to my letter on behalf of then-President Obama stating:

 ‘At this time, neither Uranium One Inc. nor ARMZ holds a specific NRC export license. In order to export uranium from the United States, Uranium One, Inc. or 

ARMZ would need to apply for and obtain a specific NRC license authorizing the export of uranium for use in reactor fuel’

 

The NRC staff made a similar statement in their recommendation to approve the transfer control of Uranium One to ARMZ, stating: 

 

 "before the licensee may export uranium to a foreign country, they must first comply with the NRC"s regulations and seek a specific license for such purpose."

 

Recent reporting by The Hill uncovered that Uranium One was able to export uranium without obtaining a specific export license. Beginning in 2012, Uranium One exported U.S. uranium by ‘piggy-backing’ as a supplier on an export license held by the shipping company, RSB Logistic Services Inc.

Barrasso originally wrote to the Obama administration in 2010 with concerns over Russia"s ability to export uranium overseas. In 2011, Obama-appointed NRC chairman Gregory Jaczko off the letter, noting the company would need an export license.

Barrasso says this was misleading during a Wednesday Senate hearing, stating “I specifically raised concerns about future exports of U.S. uranium by Uranium One,” adding “I believe the Obama administration’s response to my letter was at best misleading.”

Following Barrasso"s comments, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works requested that the NRC and the Energy Department produce documents related to the Obama administration"s response to the 2010 letter. Barrasso says he has evidence that the Energy Department misled him on their role in approving the uranium exports, and pointed out the enormous loophole which allowed Uranium One to export without a license. 

“Uranium One did not need a specific NRC license to export U.S. uranium,” said Barrasso, adding “Instead, Uranium One only needed to be, and later was, listed as a supplier on a transport company’s NRC export license.”

The New York Times covered the Uranium One story in 2015, detailing donations which poured into the Clinton Foundation from individuals associated with the deal - which was later found to be upwards of $140 million. Meanwhile, a series of follow-up reports from The Hill have filled in the gaps with several bombshells, including: 

• The FBI had a mole deep within the Russian uranium industry who gathered evidence of millions of dollars routed to  the Clinton Foundation by Russian nuclear officials. 


• The mole says there is a video showing Russians stuffing a briefcase full of bribe money, joking about Americans.


• Bill Clinton met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at his Moscow estate right before the Uranium One deal was approved, which was the same day he collected a $500,000 check for a speech to a Russian investment bank which issued a favorable rating to Uranium One stock. 

As he prepared to collect a $500,000 payday in Moscow in 2010, Bill Clinton sought clearance from the State Department to meet with a key board director of the Russian nuclear energy firm Rosatom — which at the time needed the Obama administration’s approval for a controversial uranium deal, government records show.

 

Arkady Dvorkovich, a top aide to then-Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and one of the highest-ranking government officials to serve on Rosatom’s board of supervisors, was listed on a May 14, 2010, email as one of 15 Russians the former president wanted to meet during a late June 2010 trip, the documents show.

 

“In the context of a possible trip to Russia at the end of June, WJC is being asked to see the business/government folks below. Would State have concerns about WJC seeing any of these folks,” Clinton Foundation foreign policy adviser Amitabh Desai wrote the State Department on May 14, 2010, using the former president’s initials and forwarding the list of names to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s team. -The Hill

• There was an internal scramble at the FBI to preserve records from all of the agencies which approved the Uranium One deal, as uncovered by Twitter user "Katica" after pouring through emails obtained via FOIA request. 

The agencies which received the request included the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the U.S. Dept. of Treasury, the Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI James Clapper), The National Counter Terrorism Center, and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

 

Five days after the initial request, the same FBI agent sent another round of notifications to the same agencies, adding the National Security Agency (NSA) and the U.S. Secret Service (USSS).

The next day, September 3rd, 2015, three more agencies were added to the preservation request: The CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Department of Defense (DOD)

 

At this point, every single member of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) which signed off on the Uranium One deal was served with a notice to preserve records. 

There is so much more to the deal involving players like Tony Podesta, Paul Manafort, and various members of the Obama administration - one wonders if, and when, the dam will ever break under the overwhelming weight of malfeasance - sending waves of corrupt politicians and lobbyists down the drain. 

Paul Craig Roberts: America Is "Walking Into Armageddon"

Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

The orchestrated hostility toward Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea protects the $1,000 billion annual budget of the military/security complex by convincing the American public that the US is threatened by enemies. It also keeps alive Democratic Party hopes that Trump can be removed from office, and it has prevented President Trump from normalizing relations with Russia. I have emphasized for some time that Washington’s gratuitous and aggressive actions against Russia and the constant barrage of false accusations against Russia and its government have convinced Russia that Washington is planning a military attack. There is nothing more reckless and irresponsible than to convince a nuclear superpower that you are preparing an attack on them.

One would think that such irresponsible and reckless behavior would have the citizenry aroused and the media reporting the risk. Yet, there is only silence. It is more important to the media whether NFL players stand for the national anthem and that some male politicians show sexual interest in women in inappropriate ways. Insouciant America is walking into Armageddon.

A few days ago former US Secretary of Defense William J. Perry added his voice to mine and to those of the few who understand the danger. Perry said:

“When the Cold War ended, I believed that we no longer had to take that risk [nuclear annihilation] so I put all my energy into efforts to dismantle the deadly nuclear legacy of the Cold War. During my period as the Secretary of Defense in the 90s, I oversaw the dismantlement of 8,000 nuclear weapons evenly divided between the United States and the former Soviet Union. And I thought then that we were well on our way to putting behind us this deadly existential threat, But that was not to be. Today, inexplicably to me, we’re recreating the geopolitical hostility of the Cold War, and we’re rebuilding the nuclear dangers. 

 

… We are doing this without any serious public discussion or any real understanding of the consequences of these actions. We are sleepwalking into a new Cold War, and there’s very real danger that we will blunder into a nuclear war. If we are to prevent this catastrophe, the public must understand what is happening.”

How can the American public understand when they do not know, because the few voices telling them are not reported. Indeed, the military/security complex, the Israel Lobby and the lobby’s American agents among the neoconservatives are actively working to discredit those who are aware of the dangerous situation.

The power of the military/security complex and the Israel Lobby, the two prime war-mongers of the 21st century, have immobilized the President of the United States. Trump is helpless in the face of a special prosecutor who is “investigating Russiagate,” a hoax created for the express purpose of preventing President Trump from restoring normal relations with a nuclear superpower.

Experts including William Binney, who developed the universal spy program for NSA thinking mistakenly that it would not be used against American citizens, have stated publicly that, if Russiagate were real and not an orchestrated hoax, the NSA would have all the evidence, making special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s “investigation” completely pointless.

One would think that even those who comprise the presstitute media would be able to figure out that NSA has the evidence if it exists.

Instead, the presstitutes cooperate with Mueller in creating a fake news story, one that has been kept alive for over a year.

A country in which the media lack integrity cannot be a democracy as the people have no accurate information with which to make decisions and hold government accountable. The American presstitute media functions as a control arm for the powerful vested interests that are turning the United States into a police state that serves only a few hundredths of One Percent.

Americans have been lied to about everything. I agree that the lies go back a long way. To keep this column to a readable length, we can start with the many lies of the Clinton regime. The war on Serbia was done in order to humiliate Russia by proving that Russia was helpless in the face of American might to come to the aid of its ally, and it was done to establish the use of NATO as an arm of, and cover for, US military aggression.

Then we come to 9/11, the official explanation of which is rejected not only by Osama bin Laden but also by every expert unafraid to open his/her mouth.

Then we have the fake reason for the US invasion of Afghanistan, a disaster for America as it was for the Soviets. A handful of lightly armed Afghans defeated “the world’s only superpower,” just as they defeated the powerful Soviet army.

Then we have the fake charges of Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction” hyped to the heavens by the corrupt American presstitutes. This amazing lie, disavowed by the UN weapons inspectors, was used despite the evidence to the contrary to invade Iraq and to destroy a country. This lie was later repudiated by US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who regretted the stain on his reputation caused by the George W. Bush/Dick Chaney regime’s misuse of his credibility before the UN.

Then we have the fake charges against Libya’s Gaddafi that were used to murder Gadaffi, to Hillary’s great delight, and to destroy the most successful country in Africa.

The ISIS mercenaries that Hillary and Obama used to destroy Libya were sent to destroy Syria when Russia and the British Parliament blocked Obama’s plan to send American troops to invade Syria. We have been subjected to years of lies from Washington and the presstitutes that Washington is fighting ISIS, when Washington sent ISIS to Syria to destroy Assad and the Syrian government.

And there is Somalia, another packet of Washington/presstitute lies. And the violation of Pakistan with the bombing of tribal areas falsely claimed to be al-Qaeda or Taliban supporters.

And there is Yemen devastated by Washington’s puppet Saudi Arabia.

And there are the false news reports of “Iranian nukes” and Iranian belligerent actions against Israel.

And “Russia invaded Ukraine” when in fact Washington overthrew with its financed NGOs the democratically elected Ukrainian government.

And now we hear that those who dare to tell the truth to Americans are “Russian agents” and “fake news purveyors.”

When a country’s government and media do nothing but lie 24/7, how can democracy exist. Clearly, it cannot.

Environmental organizations are reporting that President Trump intends to abolish two national monuments by executive order in order to open protected lands to rape, ravage, and ruin by corporations. The two national monuments are Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante.

If Trump has the power to turn national monuments over to corporate campaign donors, he most certainly can have his Attorney General open an investigation of Hillary Clinton or even indict her on the already known evidence. He can issue a pre-emptive pardon of General Flynn, who is being framed on charges that do not relate to Russian influence in the presidential election. Indeed, he can have the Attorney General investigate or arrest Mueller for sedition and an attempt to overthrow the government of the United States. These charges are far more realistic than the charge Mueller has brought against Flynn.

But what does President Trump do? He twitters, complaining that Gen. Flynns life is being destroyed while “Crooked Hillary Clinton” walks around free. 

Trump is correct, so why doesn’t he do something about it? What Flynn did was to ask the Russians not to over-react to the new sanctions that Obama placed on Russia in an effort to create such bad relations between the US and Russia that Trump would be unable to normalize them. What Flynn did was entirely appropriate and has nothing to do with the hoax story of Russiagate. The real reason that the military/security complex is after Gen. Flynn is that he is the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and he said on a TV news show that the decision by the Obama regime to send ISIS to overthrow Syria was a “willful decision” that went against his recommendation.

In other words, Flynn let the cat out of the bag that ISIS was not an independently formed organization but a tool of US policy.

The presstitutes, of course, ignored Gen. Flynn’s statement. The only effect of Flynn’s statement was to set him up for retaliation, and that is what Mueller is doing.

What Mueller is doing is so corrupt that he really should be arrested and renditioned to Egypt.

Private interests and agendas have control over the US government. The people have no control. Washington works by selling legislation to the interest groups in exchange for campaign contributions. The private interests that provide the money that elects politicians get the laws that they want. For example, President Trump is giving the environmental despoilers two protected national monuments, but he is powerless to protect himself and has advisers.

The ruling oligarchy is making an example of Trump in order to ensure that no future presidential candidate makes a direct appeal to the people. When Trump said that he was going to govern in the interest of the people by bringing the offshored jobs home, he attacked the profits of the global corporations, and when he said he was going to normalize relations with Russia, he attacked the power and profit of the military/security complex. He is now paying the price for his rashness.

The larger question is: what price will the American people and the rest of the world pay for the constraints the military/security complex has placed on Trump’s ability to normalize relations with Russia?

Stockman: Why The Deep State Is At War With Trump

Authored by David Stockman via The Mises Institute,

If you were a Martian visitor just disembarked from of one of Elon Musk"s rocket ships and were therefore uninfected by earth-based fake news, the culprits in Washington"s witch-hunt de jure would be damn obvious.

They include John Brennan, Jim Comey, Sally Yates, Peter Strzok and a passel of deep state operatives -- all of whom baldly abused their offices. After Brennan had concocted the whole Russian election meddling meme to sully the Donald"s shocking election win, the latter three holdovers -- functioning as a political fifth column in the new Administration -- set a perjury trap designed to snare Mike Flynn as a first step in relitigating and reversing the voters" verdict.

The smoking gun on their guilt is so flamingly obvious that the ability of the Trump-hating media to ignore it is itself a wonder to behold.

After all, anyone fresh off Elon"s rocket ship would learn upon even cursory investigation of the matter that the National Security Agency (NSA) intercepts electronically every single communication of the Russian Ambassador with any person on US  soil -- whether by email, text or phone call.

So the clear-minded visitor"s simple question would be: What do the transcripts say?

In fact, a Martian visitor would also quickly understand that the entire world -- friend, rival, foe and enemy, alike -- already knows of NSA"s giant digital spying operation owing to Snowden"s leaks, and that therefore there are no "sources and methods" on the SIGINT (signals intelligence) front to protect.

Accordingly, the disinterested Martian would undoubtedly insist: Declassify the NSA intercepts and publish them on Facebook (and, for old timers, on the front page of the New York Times) so that the truth would be known to all.

The Deep State Watergate

Of course, that would punch a deep hole in the entire RussiaGate witchhunt because NSA, in fact, did record Flynn"s late December conversations with Russian Ambassador Kislyak. And there was not a single word in them that related to alleged campaign collusion or otherwise inappropriate communications by the in-coming national security adviser to a newly-elected President who was three-weeks from inauguration.

Indeed, as explained below, Mueller has effectively told us that Flynn"s communications with Kislyak were clean as a whistle.

Accordingly, there was no reason whatsoever -- as in none, nichts, nada and nugatory, too -- for the FBI"s January 24th interview of Flynn. Four days after the inauguration,  Acting Attorney General Sally Yates and the FBI were wasting the time of the new President"s national security advisor for no earthly reason except to administer a "gotcha quiz" on what they knew from the transcripts to be completely innocent conversations with the Russian Ambassador

The content of the calls was entirely about pending policy matters. That is, the UN security council resolution condemning Israel"s settlements policy and Obama"s belligerent new anti-Russia sanctions. With respect to both of these matters, the incoming President had a publicly known policy position different from the incumbent"s, and about which his team was completely entitled to communicate with official foreign ambassadors.

So the January 24th interview itself was a Nixonesque abuse of the nation"s law enforcement machinery to strike at a political enemy -- albeit a mighty legitimate one who had just become occupant of the Oval Office by will of the American people.

These new-style Deep State "plumbers" who openly broke into the White House that day, in fact, conducted a blatant entrapment exercise with malice aforethought. Its only possible purpose was to bait Flynn into contradicting the word-for-word transcripts in the FBI"s possession -- intercepts which had been illegally "unmasked" by Brennan"s political witch-hunt for Russian election malefactors.

And we use the "illegal" word purposefully to underscore that the only ultimate justice here is for Obama"s rogue CIA director to be locked-up.

Brennan"s post-election leakathon of phony Russian meddling accusations was so threadbare of valid national security evidence that it even included falsehoods from the completely discredited and ludicrous Steele dossier -- which was paid for by the DNC and Clinton campaign. And it culminated in the evidence-free screed of January 6th that was nosily presented to Obama as an intelligence community"s assessment but was actually a hatchet-job authored by Brennan and a hand-picked silo of anti-Trump analysts and fiction-writers like the now outed Peter Strzok of the FBI.

Issued under cover of the CIA, FBI, NSA and Director of National Intelligence (the confirmed liar, James Clapper), this document amounted to a sweeping abuse of the national security apparatus in furtherance of purely political purposes and vengeance against Deep State critics. It capped a 5-month long, Brennan led campaign of naked political exploitation of the national security machinery that made the Nixon White House look like a Boy Scout Jamboree.

As we will demonstrate below, Brennan never had hard proof of Trump campaign collusion with the Russians to influence the election because if it existed it would have leaked in full "smoking gun" splendor long ago.

The Russian Hoax

We are referring here, again, to NSA digital intercept evidence that Russian state actors used the internet to remotely hack the Podesta and DNC servers in order to steal and then disseminate their politically embarrassing contents and thereby "influence" the US election in Trump"s favor.

Yet aside from the asinine claims about Russian troll farms and trivial amounts of Facebook ads and other such social media monkey business, that"s all she wrote. There has been no other tangible allegations of election "meddling" that rise to even minimal plausibility.

And you don"t have to be fresh off Musk"s Martian rocket ship to recognize it; you can google it yourself, but nothing -- we mean -- nothing comes up on the screen.

Yet as to the DNC emails, there has already been a compelling demonstration by ex-NSA super SIGNET sleuth, William Binney, that the DNC emails were downloaded on a memory stick by a staff insider from his own computer, not remotely hacked by Russian trolls.

That"s because the download speed of 22.7 megabytes per second embedded in the Guccifer publication of the DNC email trove was impossible to achieve from Russia or Romania or anywhere else outside of the DNC offices in July 2016 when the "hack" allegedly occurred. The highest average ISP speeds in the US during the first-half of 2016 were achieved by Xfinity and Cox Communications at 15.6 megabytes per second and 14.7 megabytes per second, respectively, while average speeds on US systems were in the order of 11 megabytes per second.

In short, the embarrassing DNC emails about election-rigging against Bernie Sanders by the Democratic Party apparatus were almost surely sucked out of the DNC"s servers by an insider with a thumb drive (which can download at the indicated speeds), not some nefarious Kremlin operative 3,000 miles away.

And as for Podesta"s emails, the Donald was surely right all along: Any 400-pound slob on a couch could have hacked an email account protected by a password called, well, "password".

Stated differently, if either of these email troves were "hacked" by remote Russian agents the digital footprint of that action is stored at one of the massive NSA server farms. 

Accordingly, it would have been unmasked at the get-go by Brennan"s hand-picked apparatchiks, thereby giving rise to another virtual certainty: Namely, such NSA intercepts, if they actually existed, would be such politically radioactive "proof" of Trump collusion that they would have been leaked from the endlessly porous US government long ago.

Moreover, any such digital evidence -- which must exist or there was never a hack in the first place -- would have drastically foreshortened Mueller"s investigation, too. That is, Mueller would have gotten NSA"s digital logs the day he opened up shop in May and would have had no other investigative task than to track down any digital evidence of Trump campaign involvement with such a Russian hacking operation.

We say "digital evidence" because unless one of Trump"s inner circle traveled to Moscow to secretly collude with the Kremlin in an off-the-grid manner on the DNC/Podesta hacks, NSA would also have the intercepts to prove it. To wit, the schedules, phone calls, text messages and emails of the Trump family and inner circle are all out there in the NSA server farms. Every one of them.

Were there a shred of evidence on these digital logs proving or even hinting at Trump campaign complicity in the alleged DNC/Podesta hacks, it would not have been overlooked by the Brennan"s inquisitors; and it would have been dispatched by Mueller"s gunslingers in no time at all.

So let"s be clear on the matter. The Donald is the ultimate seat-of-the-pants one man show who essentially relies upon his four family members (Donald Jr., Eric, Ivanka and Jared Kushner) and a few trusted advisors. Yet none of them were sent to Russia during the relevant time frame -- and had they colluded in any other way Mueller would have nailed them for any untoward digitized interactions with the Russians in a heartbeat.

That"s right. Anyone disembarking from Elon"s rocket ship could also google the fact that only two people -- Carter Page and George Papadopoulos -- even remotely involved with the Trump campaign went to Russia or tried to go there.

But Carter Page was a no-count volunteer who went to Moscow on his own dime and who never even met Trump.

Likewise, Baby George Papadopoulos was a 29-year old kid who got drafted onto Trump"s foreign policy advisory panel from, apparently, the phone book when the GOP foreign policy establishment boycotted to nearly a man/women the Trump campaign prior to the convention.

Accordingly, Baby George"s claim to fame is that he appeared in exactly one photo with the Donald on the day the foreign policy advisory committee was announced in order to appease an endlessly nagging gaggle in the press and among Trump"s legions of opponents.

If Papadopoulos had done anything more serious than sit for a photo op designed to prove Trump got his foreign policy advise other than from "watching TV," as the Donald had previously averred, his guilty plea would have hinted at it.

But, no, what Mueller"s high priced legal gun-slingers got him on was -- again -- technical perjury. So as we review Mike Flynn"s alleged crimes just recall that the Baby George"s sin was to say he meet some dufus UK professor -- who was also a phony expert on Russian affairs -- before Papadopoulos was announced as a foreign policy advisor on March 19, 2016.

As it happened, he actually meet him about a week earlier and was therefore truthful with the FBI. But these modern-day, hair-splitting Torquemadas nailed him for the "crime" of not mentioning that he knew on March 10 that he was to be appointed to the Trump committee, and that knowledge somehow colored his March 15 meeting with this no-count English go-between.

You can"t make this stuff up!

The Perjury Trap of the Century

In any event, how do we know that every word on the Flynn transcripts were perfectly legal and appropriate and did not in the slightest manner compromise so-called national security?

Simple. Mueller"s "Statement Of The Offense" tells us so.

In the case of the Russia sanctions conversation Flynn was trying to make peace, and in the case of the UN censure resolution against Israel he was trying to make trouble. But the latter is what presidents and their advisors do all the time, and the former is a wonderful idea that Washington should try far more often.

In fact, just consider the words of Mueller"s charge:

....FLYNN falsely stated that he did not ask Russia"s Ambassador to the United States ("Russian Ambassador") to refrain from escalating in response to sanctions that the United States has imposed against Russia. FLYNN also falsely stated that he did not remember a follow-up conversation in which the Russian Ambassador stated that Russia had chosen to moderate its response to those sanctions as a result of FLYNN"s request.

 

In fact, this criminal charge actually narrates the actual tick-tock of a more peaceful world struggling to be born in real time.

Accordingly, Mueller charges that on December 28th the Russian Ambassador first called Flynn after the Obama White House announced another spiteful round of petty sanctions against Putin associates.

The in-coming national security advisor, in turn, discussed "what if anything, to communicate to the Russian Ambassador" with a senior official of the Trump transition; and according to Mueller"s criminal complaint, the two agreed that "members of the Presidential Transition Team a Mar-a-Lago did not want Russia to escalate the situation."

Good for them!

There upon the very same day Flynn dialed-up Kislyak and, as the felony charging document contends, "requested that Russia not escalate the situation and only respond to the U.S. Sanctions in a reciprocal manner."

Self-evidently, the wheels of peace began to turn because the complaint notes that on December 30 "Russian President Vladimir Putin released a statement indicating that Russia would not take retaliatory measures in response to the U.S. Sanctions at the time."

Indeed, Russia didn"t merely take "reciprocal" actions, as Flynn requested, but did absolutely nothing at all. Even more progress!

Then on the last day of the year, Kislyak called Flynn back and "informed him that Russia had chosen not to retaliate in response to FLYNN"s request".

And then there is just white space in the Russia-related section of the charging document. Not a single word or hint that the Kremlin was paying off the Trump Administration for nefarious promises it had made in return for Russia"s campaign help.

For crying out loud, that white space itself proves there was not so much as a single clause or veiled code word in the transcripts about pre-election collusion or other untoward arrangements between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin -- or the FBI plumbers would have asked about it on January 24, Flynn would have lied, and it would be in the plea deal.

Indeed, the possibility that there is something untoward in the Flynn intercepts which Mueller chose to keep under wraps and did not stipulate in the plea is preposterous in the extreme.

After more than one year of investigation that has produced exactly zero hard evidence of pre-election collusion it is beyond impossible that at long last Mueller would have abjured. That is, refrained from putting a grain of content into what anyone getting off Musk"s Mars rocket can see is an utterly bogus Russia meddling case.

At the end of the day, Mueller"s perjury did occur in the context of a crime. But the felony was the Brennan-led Russian meddling inquisition.

Especially after the shocking result on November 8, the Deep State and its collaborators and shills in the Democratic Party, official Washington and the mainstream media were not about to be rebuked by the unwashed demos of Flyover America.

Indeed, if you are not caught up in the RussiaGate hysteria and witch-hunt, it"s as plain as the nose on your face

To be sure, the perjury trap sprung on Flynn was justified by Hillary partisan, Sally Yates, on the grounds that Flynn"s alleged "lie" to the Vice President left him vulnerable to "blackmail" by the Russians.

What undiluted hogwash!

The best poker player on today"s international stage, Vlad Putin, finally gets a US President with a rational attitude about Russia, and he plans to burn him day one?

C"mon. Whether she intended it or not or had gamed it out thoroughly, the history records will show that the sanctimonious Hillary partisan and politically ambitious, Sally Yates, then and there killed the best chance for peace on earth since the Soviet Union fell in 1991.

Sally Yates, James Comey, and John Brennan are the real criminals here.

As Justin Raimondo so eloquently put it:

Think about it, folks: both the US and the Russians possess enough nuclear firepower to destroy all life on earth several times over. This sword of Damocles is hanging over us by a thread, just as it loomed large during the last cold war with Moscow. It’s a  machinery of annihilation that is set on hair-trigger alert, and any number of events could unleash it: a miscalculation, a foolish bluff, a misunderstanding, a technical glitch, a showdown similar to the Cuban missile crisis. All that stands between us and utter extinction is the hope that this apparatus of death can be restrained by mutual agreement. Bravo to the Trump administration for making peace a priority. If this is now a crime, and even “treason,” as the mouth-breathers of #TheResistance would have it, well then let the Washington Inquisition make the most of it.

The point was also underscored cogently by Andrew McCarthy of the National Review.

As McCarthy argues below, differences on foreign policy are essentially now being criminalized; and the Donald"s justified desire to shutdown the Brennan-inspired political witch-hunt called RussiaGate is being falsely characterized as obstruction of justice rather than what it actually is -- an effort to prevent the Deep State"s insidious assault on American democracy from going any further.

While all that plays out, though, behold the frightening thing Mueller’s investigation has become: a criminalization of politics. In the new order of things, policy differences are the grist for investigation and prosecution.

Nevertheless, Trump’s victory caused consternation in the Obama administration for two reasons. First, and most obviously, Obama did not want his policies reversed. Second, neither Obama nor his party could abide a judgment of history holding that the election of Trump, the bane of their existence, was a result of the American people’s rejection of the Obama agenda and of Hillary Clinton, the hapless candidate nominated by Democrats to carry that agenda forward.

...The ongoing Mueller probe is not a good-faith investigation of suspected espionage or other crime. It is the exploitation of the executive’s intelligence-gathering and law-enforcement powers in order to (a) criminalize Trump political policies with which the Obama administration disagreed and (b) frame Clinton’s electoral defeat as the product of a traitorous scheme rather than a rejection of Democratic-party priorities.
Finally, we couldn"t agree more with McCarthy that General Flynn is a very foolish man. He was not required to speak to the FBI when agents came to interview him on January 24.

Moreover, as the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency he surely knew that the FBI would have been monitoring Kislyak and that the FBI had recordings of the conversations the agents wanted to ask him about.

That he agreed to submit to the interview anyway, and then to lie, is surely one of the stupidest acts coming out of official Washington that we can recall from 47 years of observation. But perhaps it does explain why America"s legions of puffed-up generals have been such abysmal failures for onwards of a half-century now.

So it is fair enough to say that Flynn has no one to blame but himself, and that a person of such poor judgment should never have been chosen to be the president’s principal national security adviser in the first place.

Then again, the American people should also understand why Flynn has gone down and why the Donald"s political scalp is fairly waiting to be lofted from the Washington Monument.

To wit, the Deep State has turned its own crimes during and after the 2016 election into nothing less than a coup d"etat against American democracy.

 

Did NBC Push An Unfounded Conspiracy Theory On Behalf Of CIA?

Authored by Wayne Madsen via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Retired National Security Agency (NSA) chief technology officer William Binney is being branded as a "conspiracy theorist" by corporate media outlets, most notably, the Comcast-owned National Broadcasting Corporation, for co-authoring a controversial memo issued this past summer by a group of former intelligence officers – Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

The memo opined that the leak of Democratic National Committee e-mails during the 2016 presidential campaign were not the result of Russian state-sponsored hacking but the result of an inside job by a DNC staffer who loaded the purloined e-mails onto a thumb drive. That view is contrary to an assessment made in a 2017 intelligence assessment by 17 US intelligence agencies. That assessment claimed that Russian government-sponsored hackers broke into the email servers of the DNC and then provided the emails to WikiLeaks. However, the assessment was not the unanimous view of 17 US intelligence agencies, but merely four – the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was provided a chapeau of legitimacy by the Director of National Intelligence. Contrary to news reports, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and intelligence elements of the military services did not provide input to the assessment.

Binney was also accused by NBC "national security reporter" Ken Dilanian of pushing the "conspiracy theory" that the "NSA is collecting and storing nearly every US communication."

Far from being a conspiracy theory, NSA"s unconstitutional eavesdropping program, code-named STELLAR WIND and officially known as the “President’s Surveillance Program,” was proven in classified documents revealed by NSA whistleblower Ed Snowden and, earlier, by Justice Department prosecutor Thomas Tamm. A metadata-capturing program called PRISM ensnared the personal data of millions of Americans from AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL.

What raised the hackles of Dilanian and other media shills for the intelligence community is that Binney was invited to a meeting with Central Intelligence Agency director Mike Pompeo on the "hallowed" 7th floor executive level at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Pompeo, a former Republican congressman from Kansas, had two CIA technology experts sit in on the meeting.

Pompeo was reportedly urged to meet Binney by President Trump after the president saw one of Binney"s interviews on Fox News and suggested that Pompeo meet with the retired NSA official.

Dilanian wrote that although Binney "has been feted in Europe and elsewhere as a truth-telling whistleblower . . . American officials of all political persuasions say his allegations about the NSA are false." Dilanian offered up pure uninformed conjecture. Many current and former NSA, CIA, Justice Department, FBI employees, of all political persuasions, have confirmed that Binney"s statements about illegal NSA eavesdropping are correct. And, they have been proven correct by deliberations of the super-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).

Dilanian is nothing more than a CIA embedded reporter at NBC News. While Dilanian was the Tribune Washington bureau national security reporter, he was accused of submitting his stories to the CIA in advance of publication. Tribune owns the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. In one email, Dilanian wrote to the CIA press officer: "I’m working on a story about congressional oversight of drone strikes that can present a good opportunity for you guys." In other cases, the CIA made significant re-edits of Dilanian"s stories. Dilanian left Tribune in May 2014 for the Associated Press. While the Tribune Washington bureau chief later called Dilanian"s e-mail exchanges with the CIA a violation of the newspaper chain"s news policy, the AP had no problem with Dilanian"s e-mail pen pals at the CIA. Dilanian later moved to NBC News.

NBC News, which has had a long relationship with the CIA since the agency"s implementation of the news media infiltration project called MOCKINGBIRD in the early 1950s, apparently has had no problem with Dilanian"s shilling for the CIA. The NBC attack on Binney appears to have been coordinated by Dilanian and his copy editors at the CIA who were not happy about Pompeo"s meeting with the NSA whistleblower. Pompeo has been all over the map on accepting the US Intelligence Community"s assessment on Russian hacking of the DNC computers, first accepting the assessment, then agreeing that it had no impact on the presidential election, and wavering back and forth to please Trump.

There is some credence to Binney"s contention that weak DNC security led to either an internal compromise of sensitive e-mails or an external hack. Then-DNC chairwoman Donna Brazile did not create a Cybersecurity Advisory Board until after the e-mail hacking became public in August 2016. Instead of asking non-partisan technical experts to serve on the advisory board, Brazile packed it with Democratic Party hacks, ironic, since the title of her new book is "Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House." Among the members of Brazile"s advisory board were former members of the Obama administration, including Rand Beers, formerly with the Department of Homeland Security; Nicole Wong and Aneesh Copra of Albright Stonebridge Group; and Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussmann, a former federal prosecutor who was a lawyer for Hillary Clinton and the DNC. Albright Stonebridge is the lobbying firm of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

According to a retired technical officer with the US Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Technology Development Services (TDS), the computer systems maintained by TDS have had their security weakened by senators who want ease of access to the systems maintained by the DNC, the Republican National Committee, and the four campaign committees of the Senate and House – the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee (DSCC), the National Republican Senate Committee (NRSC), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). The DCCC was reportedly penetrated by hackers while the DNC was also being hit. However, based on the revelations by the retired TDS official, Binney is correct in stating that the "inside hack" was done either by DNC and/or DCCC authorized users or by those who penetrated the systems from the US Senate or House of Representatives computers.

US Senate and House computer systems and network have been vulnerable to outside penetration ever since 2002, when Foxcom Wireless, a Jerusalem-based Israeli wireless start-up firm, received a contract to install a wireless system in the US Capitol and Senate and House office buildings. Foxcom was heading into bankruptcy before landing the lucrative contract for the US Capitol complex. Foxcom Wireless moved its headquarters to Vienna, Virginia and renamed itself MobileAccess Networks. In 2011, Mobile Access, Ltd. was bought by Corning, Inc. and merged into its Corning Cable Systems subsidiary.

It was discovered after the contract with the US House that Foxcom paid $280,000 to Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who was later convicted for bribery, mail fraud, and tax evasion, who helped secure the contract by lobbying members and staff of the powerful House Administration Committee, which was seen, at the time, as a corrupt congressional version of New York"s infamous Tammany Hall. The powerful committee has been dubbed the "City Hall" of Capitol Hill.

There was not a single member, except for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who voiced objections to the Foxcom contract.The deal had the personal support of House Speaker Dennis Hastert, later convicted of lying to federal investigators about details of his paying hush-money in a pedophile scandal.

The congressman who originally introduced Foxcom to the House Administration Committee was House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer. Hoyer"s sister, Bernice Manocherian, once served as the executive president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the largest Jewish influence-peddling operation in the United States. House Administration Committee members who approved the deal with the Israelis were committee chairman Bob Ney and Representatives Candice Miller, Zoe Lofgren, and Juanita Millender-McDonald. Ney was later convicted of conspiracy and making false statements in the Abramoff influence-peddling scandal.

Foxcom ensured that its "contract" to "re-wire" Congress saw no oversight from TDS technicians or employees of either the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms or House Information Resources Office. The House Information Resources Office reports to the Chief Administrative Office of the House. Today, it is convenient for the media to ignore what Abramoff"s actions have since allowed the Israeli mafia – the true culprits in the 2016 DNC/DCCC hacks – to have accomplished. Many of the Trump Organization"s global partners are members of this particular mafia and its various branches.

NBC hacks like Dilanian and the perpetual happy-faced bobblehead Katie Tur, as well as their dubious colleagues at CNN, Wolf Blitzer – the former public affairs officer for AIPAC – and Jake Tapper, are not able to see prior to 2016 to discover that the security holes within the telecommunications networks of Congress – with access to the DNC and RNC – were placed by Israeli intelligence agents in the early and mid-2000s. Brazile"s expert cyber-security committee could never turn their attention toward the Israelis, given the large amounts of money Haim Saban and Harvey Weinstein lavished on the Democratic Party.

Russia may be getting the blame for HackGate, but Israeli mobsters, hailing originally from places as diverse as Lithuania, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine to Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, and Moldova, deserve all the credit.

Another Mueller Leak Suggests Charges Loom For Mike Flynn & Son

It appears Special Counsel Robert Mueller has a serial leaker. Following last weekend"s well-timed leak of Manafort"s looming arrest - which dominated the weekend media"s speculation - NBC News reports sources familiar confirming federal investigators have gathered enough evidence to bring charges in their investigation of President Donald Trump"s former national security adviser and his son.

As a reminder, Flynn was fired in February following public revelations that he had lied to Vice President Pence about his dealings with the Russian ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak.

Michael Flynn, who was fired after just 24 days on the job, was one of the first Trump associates to come under scrutiny in the federal probe into possible collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

A week after the Manafort, Gates, Papadopoulos "smoking guns" hit the headlines, "multiple sources familiar with the investigation" that Mueller is set to apply pre pressure to Mike Flynn (and his son). As NBC News reports,the investigators are speaking to multiple witnesses in coming days to gain more information surrounding Flynn"s lobbying work, including whether he laundered money or lied to federal agents about his overseas contacts, according to three sources familiar with the investigation.

Mueller"s team is also examining whether Flynn attempted to orchestrate the removal of a chief rival of Turkish President Recep Erdogan from the U.S. to Turkey in exchange for millions of dollars, two officials said.

 

Flynn"s son, Michael G. Flynn, who worked closely with his father, accompanied him during the campaign and briefly worked on the presidential transition, could be indicted separately or at the same time as his father, according to three sources familiar with the investigation.

 

 

If the elder Flynn is willing to cooperate with investigators in order to help his son, two of the sources said, it could also change his own fate, potentially limiting any legal consequences.

NBC concludes that the pressure on Flynn is the latest signal that Mueller is moving at a rapid, and steady, pace in his investigation. Last week, investigators unsealed indictments of Manafort and Manafort"s business partner Rick Gates. They pleaded not guilty.

It"s also notable that nothing that hit last week ties Trump directly to collusion with Russia, just as the charges for Flynn do not; but just as is the case with Manafort and Gates, Mueller appears to believe applying pressure to these "bad actors" will force them to release details about President Trump (which a year-long investigation has failed to find).

Both Flynns have for months been subjects of the Mueller investigation...

The elder Flynn, an Army lieutenant general, was pushed out as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014 and retired from the military. He then founded a lobbying firm, Flynn Intel Group, where his son worked closely with him.

 

The younger Flynn was involved in the daily operations of his father"s firm and functioned as his chief of staff. He often attended meetings with his father and would communicate with prospective clients.

 

The elder Flynn was paid $530,000 last year for work the Justice Department says benefited the government of Turkey.

 

The elder Flynn did not register as a foreign lobbyist at the time, but did so retroactively this year. The issue has been part of Mueller"s probe.

 

His lawyer later said Flynn didn"t need to register because his client was a Turkish businessman and not a government official, but had opted to do so retroactively.

One wonders, given the above "sources" reporting, how long before charges are brought against Tony Podesta with regard his Foreign Agent Registration status?

We leave it to Flynn"s son to conclude...

The SJW are out in full this morning....the disappointment on your faces when I don’t go to jail will be worth all your harassment...

— ????????MFLYNNJR???????? (@mflynnJR) November 5, 2017

CIA Funding Of Tech Companies

Government funding of companies provides a steady stream of support for tech developing innovations. One vehicle for facilitating this relationship can be found in an entity called, In-Q-Tel. IQT describes their function as: “In-Q-Tel is the independent, not-for-profit organization created to bridge the gap between the technology needs of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) and emerging commercial innovation. We invest in venture-backed startups developing technologies that provide ready-soon innovation (within 36 months) vital to the IC mission. These technology startups are traditionally outside the reach of the IC; in fact, more than 70 percent of our portfolio companies have never before done business with the government.”

A Fox Business article, In-Q-Tel: A Glimpse Inside the CIA’s Venture-Capital Arm, lists some of the companies and agencies that are involve.

“Founded in 1999 as a way for the U.S. to keep up with the rapid innovation in science and technology, In-Q-Tel has been an early backer of start-ups later acquired by Google (GOOG), Oracle (ORCL), IBM (IBM) and Lockheed Martin (LMT).

While IQT originally catered largely to the needs of the CIA, today the firm supports many of the 17 agencies within the U.S. intelligence community, including the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate.”

Their focus on Startups Backed By The CIA is still a prime objective.

“In-Q-Tel issues a press release every time it funds a new company, but it discloses neither the amount of the investment nor the product it’s focused on. It’s believed that the relationship can lead to the development of off-market products tailored specifically for the CIA. A spokesman for one company funded by In-Q-Tel told Forbes that their investment was focused on a specific project with a yearlong deadline, declining to provide further details.”

In keeping with the corporatocracy economy, government direct funding or indirect assistance has become the model for startups to chase. Whatever happened to the capitalist formula of raising money from private sector investors for an equity interest in a venture?

The rules of the playfield seem to be very different when the end user and customer for the technology is some government agency. Examine the case experiences described in 25 Cutting Edge Firms Funded By The CIA.

“It’s no secret the Central Intelligence Agency has an investment firm that funds startups that could have a big impact for the Agency.

If there is a company out there doing intelligence research, it’s likely that, the CIA’s personal investor, either looked them up or made a check out to them.

It’s all to ensure that the Agency remains on the forefront of tech. Not long ago, In-Q-Tel invested heavily in a company called Keyhole. Never heard of them? Maybe you know their work, a little project eventually known as Google Earth.

So, want to know what’s next for technology? Keep an eye on these 25 companies.”

Note the acknowledgement that the AGENCY maintains an investment stake in companies. Guess the keyhole into the world of high-tech dominance has a code to unlock the fruits of the applications, residing in Langley VA.

An important analysis of How the CIA made Google is a prime source of documentation.

“In 1994 — the same year the Highlands Forum was founded under the stewardship of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the ONA, and DARPA — two young PhD students at Stanford University, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, made their breakthrough on the first automated web crawling and page ranking application. That application remains the core component of what eventually became Google’s search service. Brin and Page had performed their work with funding from the Digital Library Initiative (DLI), a multi-agency programme of the National Science Foundation (NSF), NASA and DARPA.”

With the revelation of the role that the Highlands Forum has in the process of development, it would be important to research their activities. However, that proves difficult, since a login account is required, and no way of registering to access is available. So look at the info on the Highlands Group, for publically disclosed information on the organization.

So what is the point of all these interwoven relationships? The underlying element that permeates these tech companies is that the federal government is systemically involved in the funding, purpose objectives, application acquisitions and equity participation.

Is this the new normal for the economy? Looks like it is, but such an organizational structure does not conform to the standards of free enterprise. This method for invention does not have the identical importance as “The Manhattan Project”, but may well create advance technology that will have the same or greater risks of permanent extinction.

Consider the long history in the quest for Developments in Artificial Intelligence. Mentioning DARPA and RAND Corporation in the same abstract gives pause to anyone familiar with the record of Dr. Strangelove projects.

Lastly ponder the question of corporate control and independent management in the era of government funding. Is Google a real standalone company or is Facebook the social network department for the NSA?

Is the wealth of Bill Gates, the equity positions of Larry Page and Sergey Brin, or the tax dodge shares of Mark Zuckerberg a true reflection of their actual ownership stakes in their respective companies; or are they mere fronts for a shadow government?  Just how many Eric Schmidt types are embedded in high-tech pulling the strings for the intelligence community?

The In-Q-Tel of this world act as the JP Morgan’s of the twenty-first century. Nikola Tesla’s free electricity wireless distribution was killed by the robber baron. Today the role of inventive genius is managed and contained by technocrats following the directions of spooks, who do the bidding of the supra elite.

Some intriguing questions for a Congressional hearing start with just how much money was ‘invested’ and how large of a return did the government get out of these startups? End with what were the sums of money these firms spent on lobbyists? Surely, inquiring minds would like to know.

The post CIA Funding Of Tech Companies appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.

"Never Forget" - A Marine Reflects On The Lies Of Our Endless Wars

Submitted by Brad Hoff via The Canary

The fires which began with the 9/11 attacks were never extinguished. They continue to burn fiercely from Afghanistan to Iraq to Syria to Yemen to North Africa, as the region and its regimes came unglued in the wake of George W. Bush’s ‘war on terror’.

The 16th anniversary of 9/11 was marked in America with the usual somber memorials and directives to ‘never forget". But this definitive 9/11 slogan always takes me back to the overwhelming tide of pro-war fervor that swept the US and stifled any deeper reflection or debate in the years after September 11, 2001. Sadly, I was part of that fervor – and this too I will never forget.

The militarism of my youth

I joined the US Marine Corps as an idealistic 18-year-old in 2000, with a firm resolve – as I enthusiastically told my military recruiter shortly before leaving for boot camp – to “fight evil in the world”. This resolve was rooted more deeply in my veins after the 9/11 attacks. As a relatively new Marine, I had temporarily worked at the Pentagon while attached to a headquarters computer programming unit in the two months just prior to that tragic day, and was fortunate not to be there when it was attacked.

After the smoke cleared in New York, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon, I and many others wanted ‘justice’ at all costs against an enemy we were told was present in multiple Middle Eastern countries. Slogans such as ‘let’s roll!’ echoed in my ears, and my zeal for ‘the mission’ influenced others to follow my path of military service.

While stationed in Quantico, outside of Washington DC, I became close friends with a local civilian nearing his high school graduation, and I encouraged him to join the Marine Corps. This occurred just as the Bush administration was making the case for war in Iraq.

The author as an idealistic 18-year-old not long before 9/11. Attending ‘Marine Combat Training’ (MCT) near San Diego, California.

A close friend dies in Anbar Province

While I remained at my headquarters unit in Virginia, my friend embarked on multiple tours of duty within a short two years as a Marine infantryman. I remember even then being surprised and unsettled by how rapidly his overseas deployments came. He was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq on his third deployment overseas prior to his twenty-first birthday. He had selflessly tried to stop a car laden with explosives as it sped into his checkpoint, possibly preventing more deaths among the nearby group of Marines wounded in the attack.

Paul Wolfowitz, considered one of the chief architects of the Iraq War, attended my friend’s funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. More recently, Wolfowitz spent last year"s anniversary of the 9/11 attack on NBC’s Meet the Press shamelessly arguing that he and the Bush administration had done nothing wrong in selling the war and were honest with the American people.

Neither my friend nor I had ever really understood much about the place of his eventual death or the politics of the war. This had been clear during our brief visits together as we reconnected prior to what we didn’t know would be his final deployment to the Middle East. We were never encouraged to learn about the history of Iraq or the Arab world, or to ask too many questions for that matter.

“You’re either with us or against us” was enough for us to want to go out and “win hearts and minds” – a constant refrain in the post-9/11 atmosphere.

At 2:40 pm on 9/11, exactly 16 years ago, Donald Rumsfeld was pushing to invade Iraq:

Hit SH [Saddam Hussein] @ same time—
Not only UBL pic.twitter.com/H3gYIWCgLd

— Jon Schwarz (@tinyrevolution) September 11, 2017

Uncovering a disturbing history

As the power of such simple platitudes faded, I began to investigate for myself the history of US involvement in the region. My search began in the library of the Marine Corps University at MCB Quantico, and would later lead to my travelling to Syria after completion of active service.

Few Americans know of the absurd contradictions of our foreign policy in Iraq and other places over the past few decades, yet I soon found that many Iraqis and Syrians know the history well.

The United States, through covert support of the Iraqi Ba’ath Party in the 1960s and 1970s, sponsored Saddam Hussein’s rise to power as a way to combat perceived communist influence and populist national movements in the Middle East. Throughout that time, the CIA-supported Ba’ath engaged in ‘cleansing campaigns‘ which involved door-to-door death squads offing Washington’s enemies, based on questionable lists provided through covert liaisons.

Absurd contradictions of endless militarism

Upon Hussein’s rise to the Iraqi presidency in 1979, and the increasing boldness of the Iranian Revolution, the United States encouraged Hussein to invade Iran, kick-starting the most devastating war in the region’s history. Most Americans still haven’t seen the easily accessible archive footage of Reagan’s then special envoy to the Middle East, Donald Rumsfeld (another architect of the 2003 Iraq regime change), shaking hands with Hussein in 1983, in what was clearly a warm and cordial visit.

CNN coverage of the first 9/11 anniversary, Sept. 12, 2002 interview: a visibly upset Rumsfeld asks "Where did you get this video?" when confronted with footage of his prior chummy relations with Saddam Hussein.

Saddam would go on, during the course of the Iran-Iraq war that took over a million lives (1980-1988), to frequently employ chemical nerve agents against Iranian troop movements. Later into the war, this occurred with the assistance of the CIA and DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency). By the time of the 1988 gas attack against Kurdish citizens in Halabja, US covert assistance to Iraq’s military was established and routine.

And yet, Hussein soon became the new super-villain of the 1990s and the post-9/11 world. The very image of evil incarnate in the world. Even though his brutal dictatorial rule and regional aggression had undergone little change from when he was the CIA’s man in Baghdad. It was only American perceptions of him that changed.

The United States had helped to create the very monster it was telling young men and women to travel across the world to destroy in 2003. Ironically, one of the main justifications for going after the ‘evil tyrant’ offered by Bush was Hussein’s gassing of Halabja.

Resisting a ‘forever war’ culture

By the final year of my military contract, I was learning too many uncomfortable truths. But ultimately, it was meeting families with roots in Iraq and Syria during social functions outside of military work that finally transformed my thinking. Military culture and the general pro-war atmosphere in America had warped me into thinking of Iraqis as ‘savage’ and ‘tribal’, according to the usual simplistic stereotypes.

But I saw very quickly that Arab people and others from the region tended to have a much more nuanced understanding of the world, reflecting its true complexities, than the average American. Looking back, it was these Arab-American friends (who gave predictions and warnings about what was to come of the US invasion of Iraq) who were proven exactly right. At the time, they were sneered at and ridiculed by most for daring to offer a contrary viewpoint, even though they knew the history of America’s prior destructive meddling in the Middle East quite well.

I remember that my friend who had died so young in Iraq said, during one our last conversations, that his heart had been warmed by his brief encounters with the Iraqi civilians he spoke to during his first tour. He saw hope in their faces. He soon redeployed to Iraq, still trusting that our leaders had it right.

My friend, like thousands of others among the US war dead, loved his country. But the architects and promoters of the war were playing the same cynical and deceitful game they’ve played for decades in the Middle East. The men that led us into war lost no friends, grieved no loved ones, and suffered no lasting consequences. They left government and went on book tours, headed up powerful global institutions, retired to comfortable jobs at think tanks, and continued to make millions – as war profiteers have always done.

My young friend is buried in the ground at Arlington Cemetery. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians are also long dead. And the region is still on fire.

Leaving the Marines

During my last work day as an active duty member, I sat in an administrative room in Quantico with about 30 other marines about to receive ‘honorable discharge‘. Our final debriefing included having to sit through multiple presentations from representatives of major private military contractor firms (mercenary groups like Blackwater/Academi). As active military personnel we were forced to hear the mercenary companies" recruitment pitches before being able to access our official discharge papers. I later learned that it was never widely known among the public that this happened on bases that were especially located around D.C. during the years just after 9/11.

They boasted of huge payouts to deploy to Afghanistan and Iraq in a private capacity, at a time when both countries were engulfed in chaos and ruin. There was a smug grin on each mercenary recruiter’s face.

It seems that almost every Marine in the room flocked to the contractors’ tables after receiving official discharge papers. I walked past these mercenary recruitment tables in disgust, jumped in my packed-up car, and drove back to Texas as a civilian.

Pepe Escobar On North Korea: Fire, Fury, Fear, & False Flags

Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

Alarm bells ringing as rampant speculation breaks out over Pyongyang’s ‘possible’ miniaturized nuclear warheads.

Beware the dogs of war.

The same intel “folks” who brought to you babies pulled from incubators by “evil” Iraqis as well as non-existent WMDs are now peddling the notion that North Korea has produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead able to fit its recently tested ICBM.

That’s the core of an analysis completed in July by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Additionally, US intel believes that Pyongyang now has access to up to 60 nuclear weapons.

On the ground US intel on North Korea is virtually non-existent – so these assessments amount to guesswork at best.

But when we couple the guesswork with an annual 500-page white paper released earlier this week by the Japanese Defense Ministry, alarm bells do start ringing.

The white paper stresses Pyongyang’s “significant headway” in the nuclear race and its “possible” (italics mine) ability to develop miniaturized nuclear warheads able to fit on the tips of its missiles.

This “possible” ability is drowned in outright speculation. As the report states, “It is conceivable that North Korea’s nuclear weapons program has already considerably advanced and it is possible that North Korea has already achieved the miniaturization of nuclear bombs into warheads and has acquired nuclear warheads.”

Western corporate media would hardly refrain from metastasizing pure speculation into a “North Korea has miniaturized nuclear weapons” frenzy consuming the cable news cycle/ newspaper headlines.

Talk about hearts and minds comfortably numbed by the fear factor.

The Japanese white paper, conveniently, also escalated condemnation of China over Beijing’s actions in both the East and South China seas.

So let’s look at the agendas in play. The War Party in the US, with its myriad connections in the industrial-military-media complex, obviously wants/needs war to keep the machinery oiled. Tokyo, for its part, would much appreciate a pre-emptive US military attack – and damn the inevitable, massive South Korean casualties that would result from Pyongyang’s counterpunch.

It’s quite enlightening that Tokyo, for all practical purposes, considers China as a “threat” as serious as North Korea; Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera went straight to the point when he said, “North Korea’s missiles represent a deepening threat. That, along with China’s continued threatening behavior in the East China Sea and South China Sea, is a major concern for Japan.” Beijing’s response was swift.

Kim Jong-Un, demonized ad infinitum, is not a fool, and is not going to indulge in a ritual seppuku unilaterally attacking South Korea, Japan or US territory. Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal represents the deterrent against regime change that Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi could not count on. There’s only one way to deal with North Korea, as I’ve argued before; diplomacy. Tell that to Washington and Tokyo.

Meanwhile, there’s United Nations Security Council Resolution 2371. It does target North Korea’s major exports – coal, iron, seafood. Coal accounts for 40% of Pyongyang’s exports, and arguably 10% of GDP.

Yet this new sanctions package does not touch imports of oil and refined-oil products from China. That’s one of the reasons why Beijing voted in favor.

Beijing’s strategy is a very Asian attempt to find a face-saving solution – and that takes time. UNSC resolution 2371 buys time – and may dissuade the Trump administration, for now, from going heavy metal, with horrible consequences.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi cautiously stated the sanctions are a sign of international opposition to North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons programs. The last thing Beijing needs is a war right on its borders, also bound to negatively interfere with the expansion of the New Silk Roads, a.k.a. Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Beijing could always work on re-building trust between Pyongyang and Washington. That’s an order taller than the Himalayas. One just needs to look back at the 1994 Agreed Framework, signed during Bill Clinton’s first term.

The framework was supposed to freeze – and even dismantle – Pyongyang’s nuclear program and was bound to normalize US-North Korea relations. A US-led consortium would build two light-water nuclear reactors to compensate for Pyongyang’s loss of nuclear power; sanctions would be lifted; both parties would issue “formal assurances” against the use of nuclear weapons.

Nothing happened. The framework collapsed in 2002 – when North Korea was enshrined in the “axis of evil” by the Cheney regime. Not to mention that the Korean War is still, technically, on; the 1953 armistice was never replaced by a real peace treaty.

So what next? Three reminders.

1) Beware of an engineered false flag, to be blamed on Pyongyang; that would be the perfect pretext for war.

2) The current narrative is eerily similar to the usual suspects blaring since forever that Iran is a heartbeat away from “building a nuclear weapon”.

3) North Korea holds trillions of US dollars in unexplored mineral wealth. Watch the shadowplay by candidates bound to profit from such juicy loot.

US "Confirms" N.Korea Has ICBM-Ready Nuclear Warheads

First thing this morning we reported that according to a 500-page report by the Japanese Defense Ministry, North Korea may now be in possession of a miniature nuclear warhead. That said, the report did not move the market because the Japanese report was largely inconclusive and did not claim with certainty that this is the case.

Now, moments ago, the exact same narrative escalated when the WaPo echoed what Japan said, only it now "confirms" that North Korea has successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles, "crossing a key threshold on the path to becoming a full-fledged nuclear power, U.S. intelligence officials have concluded in a confidential assessment."

As the WaPo adds, the analysis completed last month by the Defense Intelligence Agency comes on the heels of another intelligence assessment that sharply raises the official estimate for the total number of bombs in the communist country’s atomic arsenal.

“The IC [intelligence community] assesses North Korea has produced nuclear weapons for ballistic missile delivery, to include delivery by ICBM-class missiles,” the assessment states, in an excerpt read to The Washington Post. The assessment’s broad conclusions were verified by two U.S. officials familiar with the document. It is not yet known whether the reclusive regime has successfully tested the smaller design, although North Korean officially last year claimed to have done so.

Of course, another vivid instance of "confirmation" of weapons being present, not nuclear so much as of "mass destruction" is the following.

In any case, the U.S. calculated last month that up to 60 nuclear weapons are now controlled by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Some independent experts believe the number of bombs is much smaller.

As Jeff Bezos" paper of record adds, the findings are likely to deepen concerns about an evolving North Korean military threat that appears to be advancing far more rapidly than many experts had predicted. The "conclusion" will also accelerate US plans, already in place, to intervene "preemptive" in North Korea, just as the neo-con/warhawks in Washington desire, once again binding Trump in the process.

The WaPo report has certainly impacted the market, well the FX market if not the S&P which just keeps rising as CTAs are buying because other CTAs are buying, and the USDJPY has slumped on the news, revealing the latest divergence between it and the S&P.

From Jihad To Jobs, Paul Craig Roberts Says "Fakes News Is A US Media Specialty"

Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

The American media specializes in fake news.

Indeed, since the Clinton regime the American media has produced nothing but fake news.

Do you remember the illegal US bombing and destruction of Yugoslavia? Do you remember “war criminal” Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian president branded “the butcher of the Balkans,” who was compared to Hitler until Hillary passed the title on to the President of Russia? Milosevic, not Bill Clinton, was arrested and placed on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal. He died in prison, some say murdered, before he was cleared of charges by the International Criminal Tribunal. http://www.globalresearch.ca/milosevic-and-the-destruction-of-yugoslavia-unpleasant-truths-no-one-wants-to-know/5540873

Do you remember the destruction of Iraq justified by the orchestrated propaganda, known by the criminal George W. Bush regime to be an outright lie, about Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction,” weapons that the UN arms inspectors verified did not exist? Iraq was destroyed. Millions of Iraqis were killed, orphaned, widowed, and displaced. Saddam Hussein was subjected to a show trial more transparent than Stalin’s trial of Bukharin and then murdered under the pretext of judicial execution.

Do you remember the destruction of Libya based entirely on Washington’s lies and the criminal misuse of the UN no-fly resolution by turning it into a NATO bombing of Libya’s military so that the CIA-armed jihadists could overthrow and murder Muammar Gaddafi? Do you remember the killer bitch Hillary gloating, “we came, we saw, he died!”

Do you remember the lies that the criminal Obama regime told about Assad of Syria and the planned US invasion of Syria that was blocked by the UK Parliament and the Russian government? Do you remember that Obama and the killer bitch sent ISIS to do the job that US troops were prevented from doing? Do you remember General Flynn revealing on TV that it was a “willful decision” of the criminal Obama regime to send ISIS to Syria over his objection as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency? This bit of told truth is why Gen. Flynn is hated by the Washington criminals who forced him out as Trump’s National Security Adviser.

Do you remember the US coup in Ukraine against the democratically elected government and its replacement with a neo-nazi regime? Do you remember that Washington’s crime against Ukrainian democracy was quickly hidden behind false charges of “Russian invasion”?

Can you think of any truthful report in the American news in the past two decades?

All of the lies leading to the death of millions told by the criminal Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama regimes were transparent. The US media could easily have exposed them and saved the lives of millions of peoples and saved seven countries from destruction in whole or part. But the presstitutes cheered on the gratuitous and criminal destruction of countries and peoples. Every one of the presstitutes is a war criminal under the standards set by US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson at the Nuremberg trials.

We cannot even get a truthful jobs report. Friday (Aug. 4) the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported 205,000 new private sector jobs in July and a drop in the unemployment rate to 4.3%. This is fake news.

The Associated Press’s Christopher Rugaber rah-rahs the fake news, adding that many economists think “robust hiring could continue for many more months, or even years.” Let’s think about that for a moment. Generally speaking economists regard full employment to be a 5% rate of unemployment. There can never be a zero rate of unemployment because of frictions in the job market. For example, there are people between jobs who have lost or quit a job and are looking for a new one, and there are people who have dropped out of the work force, perhaps to spend more time parenting or to care for an aged and ill parent, and have reentered the work force. Economists also believe that employment cannot go too low without pushing up inflation.

Assuming economists have not suddenly changed their minds about what rate of unemployment is full employment, if the unemployment rate is currently 4.3%, it is already below the full employment rate. How can the rate continue to fall for years when the economy is already at full employment? Apparently, this question did not occur to the AP reporter or to the “many economists.”

Of course, the 4.3% unemployment rate is fake news. It does not include millions of discouraged workers. When these workers who have not looked for jobs within the last four weeks are included, the unemployment rate jumps to 22-23%.

Now consider the alleged 205,000 July new jobs. Probably about half of these jobs are due to the add-ons from the birth-death model, and the other half from manipulations of seasonal adjustments. John Williams at shadowstats.com will tell us. However, let’s assume the jobs are really there. Where does the BLS tell us the jobs are?

Eighty-nine percent of the jobs are in services, essentially domestic non-tradable services.

Professional and business services account for 49,000 of the jobs, of which 30,000 are in administrative and waste services (garbage collection) and 14,700 are in temporary help services.

54,000 of the jobs are in education and health services, of which ambulatory health care services, home health care services and social assistance account for 46,900 of the jobs.

62,000 of the jobs are in leisure and hospitality, of which waitresses and bartenders account for 53,100 of the jobs and amusements, gambling, and recreation account for 5,900 jobs.

This picture of American employment has been holding for about two decades. It is a portrait of a third world labor force. The jobs are not in export industries. The jobs are not in high productivity, high value-added occupations that produce a middle class income. The jobs are in lowly paid, often part-time domestic services.

The jobs do not produce incomes that provide discretionary spending to drive up business profits. So why did the stock market hit new highs? The answer is that corporate executives are taking advantage of the Federal Reserve’s zero interest rates to borrow money with which to buy back their companies’ shares in order to drive up their bonuses, the main component of their pay.

But these undeniable facts about employment did not prevent Christopher Rugaber and the other financial presstitutes or newspaper headline writers or “many economists” from asking “How much better can it get?” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution front page, Aug. 5, 2017).

It is not only seven Muslim countries that Washington and its presstitutes have destroyed in whole or part with lies. Washington’s lies have also destroyed the American economy and the American work force.