Russia-gate, the sprawling investigation into whether
Russia meddled in last year’s U.S. election, is often compared to the two big
political scandals of the latter half of the Twentieth Century, Watergate and
Iran-Contra. Sometimes you even hear that Russia-gate is “bigger than
Watergate.”
e
bugged phone from the Watergate office of Democratic Party official Spencer
Oliver. Placed on the phone during a May 1972 break-in, the bug was the only
device that worked. A second break-in on June 17. 1972, led to the capture of
Richard Nixon’s Watergate burglars.
Yet what is perhaps most remarkable about those two
Twentieth Century scandals is how little Official Washington really understands
them – and how these earlier scandals significantly contrast, rather than
compare, with what is unfolding now.
Although the historical record is still incomplete on
Watergate and Iran-Contra, the available evidence indicates that both scandals
originated in schemes by Republicans to draw foreign leaders into plots to
undermine sitting Democratic presidents and thus pave the way for the elections
of Richard Nixon in 1968 and Ronald Reagan in 1980.
June 24, 2017 "Information Clearing
House" - On June 21 the editorial board of the Washington Post, long a
propaganda instrument believed to be in cahoots with the CIA and the deep
state, called for more sanctions and more pressure on Russia. One second’s
thought is sufficient to realize how bad this advice is. The orchestrated
demonization of Russia and its president began in the late summer of 2013 when
the British Parliament and Russian diplomacy blocked the neoconned Obama
regime’s planned invasion of Syria. An example had to be made of Russia before
other countries began standing up to Washington. While the Russians were
focused on the Sochi Olympic Games, Washington staged a coup in Ukraine,
replacing the elected democratic government with a gang of Banderite neo-nazi
thugs whose forebears fought for Hitler in World War II. Washington claimed it
had brought democracy to Ukraine by putting neo-nazi thugs in control of the
government.
He’s pursuing the same reckless agenda as
Obama, pushing the envelope toward possible direct confrontation. Despite
neither country wanting war, unfolding events may cause the unthinkable to
happen by accident or design. Among major powers, Russia is the world’s leading
peace and stability champion – America just the opposite. It’s recklessly
waging wars in multiple theaters, threatening conflicts against North Korea,
Iran, and perhaps Russia the way things are going. Madness defines US policy,
state terror on a global scale, naked aggression its main expression,
controlling planet earth, its resources and people its objective – risking
potentially life-destroying nuclear war.
U.S. government officials,
including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr.,
claim the current U.S. authority to mount military operations in Iraq and Syria
is legally based on the Authorization
for the Use of Military Force [AUMF] declaration to go after Al
Qaeda and related terror groups after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. But how does
that cover the recent U.S. attacks on Syrian government forces that have been
battling both Al Qaeda and its spinoff, Islamic State?
Francis Boyle, professor of
international law at the University of Illinois College of Law, asserts that
the recent U.S. shoot-down of a Syrian government jet inside Syria on June 18
was not only illegal under international law but amounts to an impeachable act
by President Trump.
In an interview with Flashpoints’
Dennis J. Bernstein, Professor Boyle said, “What the U.S. government is getting
away with here is incredible.” Boyle also talked to Bernstein about the
questionable Russia-gate investigation and the darker history behind Special
Prosecutor Robert Swan Mueller III, the former Director of the Federal Bureau
of Investigation.
Dennis Bernstein: Will Syria’s
hot war and the recent U.S. bombings there lead us into a hot war with Russia?
Well, the generals are saying this shoot-down in Syria is legal. You want to
jump into this?
These days I find
myself thinking often about a cartoon by the late Theodore Geissel.
In it, a woman with a
sweater that reads “America First” reads aloud from a storybook to two
children: “And the Wolf chewed up the children and spit out their bones,” she
relays. “But those were Foreign Children and it didn’t really matter.”
Geissel — better known
as Dr. Seuss — was criticizing Americans’ purposeful isolationism during World
War II. But it’s never felt more prescient, as a sitting American president
embarks on a dangerous and deadly new “America First” policy.
We noted yesterday that the Washington Post is owned by one of the world’s richest guys, worth $72.8 billion … and who may soon become THE world’s richest.
And you probably won’t hear it from the New York Times, but the largest shareholder of the Times is the sixth wealthiest guy … worth $54.5 billion. He used to be THE richest person, but he’s slipped a little in the rankings.
It’s not just the Post and the Times …
Forbes reported last year:
June 19, 2017 "Information Clearing House" - In a marked escalation of the war in Syria, a US F-18 fighter jet yesterday shot down a Syrian government fighter bomber for the first time, claiming that it had been attacking pro-US rebel forces on the ground near Raqqa. While nominally fighting Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) forces, the US shoot-down makes clear that the real target of American-led operations is the ousting of the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad.
The US military justified the provocative act by claiming that the Syrian SU-22 had been bombing near so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) troops. It cited fighting that had taken place hours earlier between the Syrian military and SDF forces holding the town of Ja’Din as showing “hostile intent” and declared that attacks on “legitimate counter-ISIS operations will not be tolerated.” The statement absurdly declared that it was not seeking “to fight Syrian regime, Russian or pro-regime forces partnered with them.”
There is nothing legitimate about the military activities of the US and its allies inside Syria, which, under the guise of the “war on terror,” are seeking to carve out areas that can be used to mount operations against the Assad regime and its Russian and Iranian backers. As ISIS militias in both Syria and Iraq are in retreat, the US preparations to move against Assad are coming increasingly into the open.
The Syrian army issued a statement saying that its aircraft had been on a mission against ISIS when it came under fire, accused the US of “coordinating” with ISIS and warned that the incident would have “dangerous repercussions.” The pilot has not been found and is presumed dead.
The US attack follows its shooting down of an unmanned pro-Syrian government drone earlier in June after it allegedly fired on US-backed troops in southern Syria near the border with Iraq. The US military has unilaterally declared “a deconfliction zone” with a radius of 55 kilometres around a training base at al-Tanf—a key border crossing between the two countries.
In effect, Washington has carved out an area of Syria where US and British special forces train so-called rebels—supposedly to fight ISIS, but in reality for its proxy war against the Assad regime. The US has already conducted air strikes against pro-Syrian government forces that have sought to regain control of the vital border area.
Last week Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov phoned US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and demanded that the US stop attacking Syrian government forces as they seek to drive ISIS militias out of the border areas. “Lavrov expressed his categorical disagreement with the US strikes on pro-government forces and called on him to take concrete measures to prevent similar incidents in the future,” the Russian foreign ministry reported.
The situation throughout Syria remains extremely fraught with the Assad regime accusing the US-led forces besieging Raqqa of allowing ISIS fighters to escape to the south where government troops are battling ISIS for control of the city of Deir es-Zor.
Over the weekend, Iran’s military fired ground-to-ground missiles for the first time from Iranian territory against ISIS positions inside Syria. While claiming that they were in retaliation for the June 7 ISIS attacks in Tehran, the missile attacks into the Deir es-Zor area were clearly aimed at bolstering the Syrian government forces.
The US proxy war in Syria is part of a broader confrontation which is not just aimed at the Assad regime but more broadly against its backers—Iran and Russia. Trump’s trip to the Middle East last month was above all aimed at forging an alliance with Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Gulf States against Iran and its allies in the region.
The immediate outcome was the imposition of an all-out, Saudi-led economic blockade against Qatar—itself an act of war. Riyadh accused Qatar of sponsoring terrorism, but the real reason lies in Qatar’s relations with Iran and its reluctance to join Saudi Arabia in its anti-Iranian war drive.
The Saudi monarchy, which has long regarded Iran as its chief regional rival, is deeply hostile to the Assad regime in Damascus, which it regards as part of a Shiite crescent that includes Shiite parties and militias in Iraq and Lebanon. Backed to the hilt by the US, Saudi Arabia is waging its own war in Yemen against Houthi rebels, who, it claims, are being supported by Iran and who ousted the US-Saudi puppet government in 2014.
The Trump regime signalled its determination to ramp up the war in Syria in April when it launched a barrage of cruise missile strikes against a Syrian government air base on the pretext of unsubstantiated claims the regime had carried out a gas attack. The US military is determined to rebuild anti-Assad forces after the devastating blow suffered by these pro-US militias in being driven out of Aleppo.
The shooting down of the Syrian SU-22 is another demonstration that the US is prepared to resort to the most reckless means to defend its footholds in Syria and lay the basis for the broader war that is being prepared.
While proclaiming its own “deconfliction zones” or no-go areas, the US military reiterated last month that it will operate at will throughout Syria. “We don’t recognise any specific zone in itself that we preclude ourselves from operating in,” Lieutenant General Jeffrey Harrigan, commander of the US air forces in the region, declared.
As a result the stage is set for a dramatic escalation of the Middle East conflict where a relatively minor incident or clash involving US forces and their Syrian, Iranian or Russian counterparts could erupt into a war that draws in major regional and world powers.
Why Are We Attacking the Syrians Who Are Fighting ISIS?
By Ron Paul
June 13, 2017 "Information
Clearing House" - Just when you thought our Syria policy
could not get any worse, last week it did. The US military twice attacked
Syrian government forces from a military base it illegally occupies inside
Syria. According to the Pentagon, the attacks on Syrian government-backed
forces were “defensive” because the Syrian fighters were approaching a US self-declared
“de-confliction” zone inside Syria. The Syrian forces were pursuing ISIS in the
area, but the US attacked anyway.
This video was available on Youtube. A few hours after I posted it they took it off, since it did not meet US government's propaganda against Russia. What a democracy! Another instance how the media is in the pocket of the government, as Information Clearing House calls US press presstitute! However the entire four parts can be watched on Showtime On Demand.
Canterbury, Tory since the First World War, went Labour.
Labour took over Portsmouth South, a Tory–Liberal marginal. Nick Clegg lost
Sheffield Hallam, the Tory ministers Jane Ellison and Ben Gummer were ousted,
and Amber Rudd was only barely saved by the recount. A string of bellwethers,
such as Warwick and Leamington, Reading East, Ipswich, Peterborough and Enfield
Southgate, turned Labour. Mountainous SNP majorities fell. Supposed London
marginals such as Ealing Central, Tooting and Hampstead and Kilburn became safe
seats. Labour had its biggest surge in vote share since 1945, with Corbyn
racking up just short of 13 million votes, 40 per cent of the total, after
coming from twenty points behind. The political map has been completely
re-drawn.
Just as important was the dog that didn’t bark. The “UKIP
effect” was, for good reasons, expected to maul Labour in the rustbelts of the
North and West Midlands. Not a bit of it. Except for a few interesting cases,
such as Stoke and Mansfield, Labour came back with increased majorities.
It is hard to remember, in the face of all this, that Labour
didn’t actually win the election. Because, while Jeremy Corbyn didn’t become
Prime Minister, he did pull off the most stunning upset in recent political
history. And he did this by turning out voters who, according to all received
wisdom, would never vote, above all the young and poor.
