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Monsanto’s Hit List Exposed in ‘Fusion Center’

Posted by M. C. on August 21, 2019

  • Monsanto planned to discredit Gillam’s book, “White Wash” ahead of its release in 2017 by instructing its customers to post negative reviews and paying Google to promote search results critical of Gillam and her work

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2019/08/20/project-spruce.aspx

Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola

Story at-a-glance

  • Documents obtained during the discovery process of lawsuits against Monsanto reveal the company has been engaged in a coordinated campaign to discredit critics of the company
  • Journalist Carey Gillam, the nonprofit U.S. Right to Know (USRTK) and singer-songwriter Neil Young have all been targeted by Monsanto’s “intelligence fusion center”
  • Monsanto planned to discredit Gillam’s book, “White Wash” ahead of its release in 2017 by instructing its customers to post negative reviews and paying Google to promote search results critical of Gillam and her work
  • Monsanto’s surveillance center produced written reports on USRTK’s activities, along with a detailed plan for how to deal with USRTK’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests
  • In one email, AgBioChatter members were advised to delete their emails to prevent information from coming out were USRTK to file a FOIA request for their correspondence

In what Democracy Now!1 refers to as an “explosive report” by The Guardian,2 documents obtained during the discovery process of lawsuits against Monsanto reveal the company has been engaged in a coordinated campaign to discredit critics of the company.

Among them are journalist Carey Gillam, the nonprofit U.S. Right to Know (USRTK) and singer-songwriter Neil Young, whose 2015 album, “The Monsanto Years,” was an artistic critique of the company.

“The records … show Monsanto adopted a multi-pronged strategy to target Carey Gillam, a Reuters journalist who investigated the company’s weedkiller and its links to cancer,” The Guardian writes.3

“Monsanto, now owned by the German pharmaceutical corporation Bayer, also monitored a not-for-profit food research organization through its ‘intelligence fusion center,’ a term that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies use for operations focused on surveillance and terrorism.

The documents, mostly from 2015 to 2017, were disclosed as part of an ongoing court battle on the health hazards of the company’s Roundup weedkiller.”

Monsanto records show organized plan to silence journalist

According to The Guardian,4 the records obtained reveal how Monsanto planned to discredit Gillam’s book, “White Wash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science,”5 ahead of its release in 2017 by instructing “industry and farmer customers” to post negative reviews and paying Google to promote search results critical of Gillam and her work.

In all, the attack on Gillam’s book, dubbed “Project Spruce,”6 (an internal code name for Monsanto’s defense directive to protect the company against all perceived threats to its business7) had more than 20 activity points, including the engagement of regulatory authorities and providing “pro-science third parties” with talking points…

USRTK targeted by Monsanto’s surveillance center

Monsanto’s surveillance center also produced written reports on Young’s anti-Monsanto advocacy efforts and USRTK’s activities, along with a detailed plan9 for how to deal with USRTK’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

“Monsanto officials were repeatedly worried about the release of documents on their financial relationships with scientists that could support the allegations they were ‘covering up unflattering research,'” The Guardian writes. 10

Indeed, among the many action steps listed in Monsanto’s USRTK response plan11 are “Edit existing copy” to “Bolster language on transparency and collaboration,” and “Write post that tells the story about the impact of a project (one that resonates well with a societal audience) that was made possible through the collaboration of Monsanto and Academia … ” The Guardian adds:12

“Government fusion centers have increasingly raised privacy concerns surrounding the way law enforcement agencies collect data, surveil citizens and share information.

Private companies might have intelligence centers that monitor legitimate criminal threats, such as cyberattacks, but ‘it becomes troubling when you see corporations leveraging their money to investigate people who are engaging in their first amendment rights,’ said Dave Maass, the senior investigative researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation …

Michael Baum, one of the attorneys involved in the Roundup trials that uncovered the records, said the records were further ‘evidence of the reprehensible and conscious disregard of the rights and safety of others’ … ‘It shows an abuse of their power that they have gained by having achieved such large sales,’ he added.”

In an August 9, 2019, press release, USRTK comments on the documented campaign against the organization:13

“USRTK has made public records requests to taxpayer-funded universities since 2015, leading to multiple revelations about secretive industry collaborations with academics …

The documents, which were made available through discovery in the Roundup cancer litigation, show that Monsanto was worried that the public records requests had the “potential to be extremely damaging” and so crafted a plan to counter the USRTK investigation …

‘The story of the Monsanto Papers is that the company acts like it has an awful lot to hide,’ said Gary Ruskin, co-director of U.S. Right to Know, who led the investigation. ‘Whenever scientists, journalists and others raise questions about their business, they attack. We are just the latest example. This has been going on for years.'”

The press release goes on to list several key findings from the documents, detailing how Monsanto intended to safeguard its “freedom to operate.” One way of doing that was to “position” USRTK’s investigation into its dealings as “an attack on scientific integrity and academic freedom.”…

Who are Monsanto’s emissaries?

As Thacker points out, Monsanto has perfected several of the strategies initiated by the tobacco industry decades ago to hide the dangers of smoking. One key strategy is to undermine the public’s confidence in science showing there are problems.

This is done in two parts: First, create your own science that contradicts findings showing a problem. Next, influence and shape public discussion by maligning the critics and emphasizing the lack of scientific consensus. This engineered doubt is what keeps the public from turning their back on the products and prevents regulatory interventions.

Another tobacco tactic employed by Monsanto is the development of relationships with scientists and nonprofit organizations who, while maintaining an aura of independence, act as “corporate emissaries to the press,” to use Thacker’s term. Who are some of Monsanto’s most well-known emissaries? Aside from Haskel, Thacker’s article names:

  • Nina Federoff, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of biology at Penn state27
  • Jon Entine, founding director of the Genetic Literacy Project28 — another front group that, despite having been repeatedly exposed as such, continues to be promoted to the top of internet search results for GMO topics
  • Bruce Chassy, Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois29,30
  • Kevin Folta, University of Florida professor
  • The American Council on Science and Health

What’s particularly disturbing is the idea that academics working for publicly funded universities have been captured by industry and are promoting an industry agenda on the taxpayers’ dime, while simultaneously benefiting financially from their corporate masters…

 

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Monsanto ~ They should be made to spray those chemcials ...

 

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The Oligarchy’s Plans For Our Future Keep Getting Dumber – Caitlin Johnstone

Posted by M. C. on August 21, 2019

Perhaps spending money to DIScourage nukes instead of thinking up reasons to justify their existence would be of more benefit to mankind.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/08/20/the-oligarchys-plans-for-our-future-keep-getting-dumber/

author: Caitlin Johnstone

It’s rare to get a billionaire to share their grand plans for the future, which is weird because billionaires pretty much rule the world. Whenever they do, though, it’s always something incredibly sociopathic, like replacing all jobs with billionaire-owned automation/AI and giving people a Universal Basic Income set by the billionaire-owned government. Or loading all the humans onto rocket ships and sending them to live on Amazon Space Dildos.

Billionaire Elon Musk, who hates unions and wants to implant AI into human brains, has been continuing this trend of idiotic plutocratic futurology with a new campaign to detonate nuclear weapons on the planet Mars. This is not because Musk hates Mars, but because he wants to colonize it; the idea is to vaporize the red planet’s polar ice caps and throw carbon dioxide into the air to ultimately make the planet more habitable.

Scientists are voicing skepticism that such a plan could even work, before even opening up the “Just because you can doesn’t mean that you should” debate. Sending nuclear weapons into space for any reason whatsoever should receive an outright rejection from all of humanity, since getting nukes into earth’s orbit has been the wet dream of war machine engineers for decades and pretending they went to Mars would serve as an ideal cover story to circumvent international space treaties until it’s too late to prevent it.

Musk claims he wants to colonize Mars because a new dark age ensuing from a third world war appears “likely”, and he wants to ensure that there will be humans living off of the planet to re-populate it after we wipe ourselves out here. Rather than pouring wealth, brainpower and resources into pushing for a change in the status quo which has set the world’s nuclear-armed powers on a collision course for a world military confrontation that will destroy our biosphere, this billionaire has decided it’s better to nuke Mars so that a back bench of reserve humans can live on a desert space rock.

This is the class of people who are calling the shots in our world. These are the minds who are choosing our fate for us. I wouldn’t trust them to run a fucking gas station.

And Elon Musk is one of the saner billionaires.

I’m going to take a lot of flak for saying this, but I honestly believe that the impulse to colonize space is one of the more pernicious cultural mind viruses in our society. I mean, think about it: we’ve got a planet right here for which we are perfectly adapted, and we’re burning it to the ground while looking up at a red dot in the sky going “You know I bet if I nuked that bitch I could build a hermetically sealed house on it someday.” How much more insane could you possibly get?

I’m pushing against a cultural dogma that’s been mainstream doctrine for generations, but I really find all this blather about adventure and the indomitable human spirit of exploration quite tedious and idiotic when it comes to space colonization. We’ve got creatures swimming in our own oceans with brains many times larger than our own, and we’re killing them all off before we’ve even developed any kind of real theory about what they’re doing with all that extra gray matter. There are parts of the moon that are better explored than vast expanses of our own seas. We don’t even know what consciousness is, and science is largely uninterested in answering this question. I don’t believe the spirit of exploration and adventure is what’s driving our longing to break for the stars. I think it’s nothing but garden variety escapism.

We’ve all got that one friend or family member who’s completely miserable and is always quitting jobs and relationships and moving house and changing their diet in a desperate attempt to find happiness. They rearrange their lifestyle for the umpteenth time and they’re barely settled in before their gaze lands on some other aspect of their life and they think, “That’s the source of my unhappiness right there. If I can only escape from that, I’ll be happy.”

Such people are exasperating to be around, because you can see what they’re doing and you just want to sit them down and go “The problem is in you, babe. Moving won’t help; your inner demons will follow you every time. You’ve got to stay put and deal with your issues.”

Our species reminds me of that type of personality right now. So many of us are looking forward to some escape route coming from outside of us to rescue us from ourselves; some are looking forward to the second coming of Jesus, some are looking forward to the aliens coming in to save the day, some are looking forward to the Democrats or the Republicans finally capturing the whole entire government and setting things right with the world, and some are looking forward to billionaires setting up a space colonization program so we can get off this accursed blue orb before we destroy it. But there is no deus ex machina here. No one’s going to save us from ourselves. Even if we do succeed in running away from home, we’ll inevitably bring the same inner demons with us that got us into this mess in the first place.

We’ve got to turn inward and evolve beyond our self-destructive impulses. The only way out is through. The mind virus of celestial escapism stops us from doing this, because it offers us yet another false promise of deus ex machina. It lets us run away from doing the hard but necessary real inner work, just like doing drugs or binging on Netflix or any other kind of escapism.

Can you try a little thought experiment for me? Imagine, just for a moment, if we took space colonization off the table. Completely. Forever. We just decided that it’s never going to happen and we all moved to accept that. Really imagine it. Really put yourself there for a minute.

What does that change in you? What does that change about your attitude toward our future? If we’re honest with ourselves, I think it would change quite a bit. For me, when I take space conquest off the table, it takes me in a direction that just so happens to look extremely healthy. It makes me say, “Oh, okay, so we’ll obviously have to get rid of the status quo of endless war and ecocide, since those will ruin this place, and that will mean radically changing our relationship with each other and with our ecosystem. It will mean getting women around the world full reproductive sovereignty and education since that’s proven to reverse population growth. It will mean ceasing to think like a cancer, believing that endless growth is a virtue. It will mean ceasing to believe that the existence of trillions of humans is the best thing we can hope for for our species when we have yet to even scratch the surface of our own potential on a large scale. And I suppose it will mean getting together and figuring out how to detect and neutralize the threat of apocalyptic meteor strikes, too.”

Imagine that. Imagine if instead of trying to figure out how to fill the sky with trillions of mediocre humans we turned inward, healed our inner demons, and realized our full potential. Such a world would be a paradise. I know from my own experience that humans are capable of so very, very much more than what we have attained so far; we really haven’t scratched the surface at all. If we’re going to explore, the direction of that exploration ought to be inward.

I really think the mainstream idea that we can always make a mad dash for the black emptiness in the sky if things go to shit here keeps us from truly confronting our urgent need to preserve the ecosystemic context in which we evolved, and which there’s no evidence that we can live without.

I mean, we don’t even know that space colonization is possible. As of yet we have no evidence at all that humans are sufficiently separate and separable from Earth’s biosphere for survival apart from our ecosystem to be a real thing. Humans aren’t really separate “things”; they’re a symbiotic collaboration of organisms with ecosystems of their own, all of which as far as we know are entirely dependent on the greater ecosystem from which we blossomed. So far all our attempts at creating independent biospheres have failed miserably, and the closest we’ve come to living in space has consisted of nothing but glorified scuba excursions: visits to space stations fully dependent on a lifeline of terrestrial supplies. That’s the difference between flying and jumping. It might be as delusional as our brains thinking they can hop out of our skulls and live independently of our bodies, or some river eddies saying they’re moving to dry land.

And even if it is possible, why would you want it? Do people not know what space is? Are they aware that it’s nothing but boring desert wasteland that’s really really hard to get to and survive on? Have you ever been trapped for a long time surrounded by nothing but man-made things, like on an airplane or a cruise ship? Picture that, but way worse and for much longer. It would be a sterile, artificial existence; even if you managed to bring in plants and animals it would be ordered in a man-made way that is no more natural than the saplings grown on traffic islands. At best it would be like being in a mall your entire life. You’d be cut off from the primordial thrum of your home world. There’d be no real life there. No real soul.

Imagine never feeling the starry spatter of a shower of rain on your face. Imagine never ever again hearing the roar of wind on a wintry night or experiencing the thunder of the ocean on a big surf day. Imagine never again being blown away by the brightness of a rainbow or the thrilling crack of lightning or the astonishing beauty of a sunset or the first rays of springtime sunshine fondly warming the back of your neck. Imagine never again coming across a friendly squirrel or a shy possum or a little feast of wild blackberries. Imagine never again lying in the dappled light filtered through a magnificent tree. I don’t know about you but I would just miss the breeze playing in my hair too terribly to ever leave. I love it here and it loves me like a mother loves her child. This is not just my home, I grew from the earth as surely as a mushroom or a seahorse. I am a part of the earth and the earth is a part of me. We belong together. 

It’s easy to feel helpless. The wise ones do not have any money and therefore any power. We are being run by a handful of coddled man-children and it seems like they might have the last word. But I have been thinking about Rupert Sheldrake’s ideas on morphic resonance a lot lately and I’m increasingly convinced that even just one of us bringing consciousness to an aspect of our collective darkness is enough to wordlessly and instantly inform the herd. So, do me a favor if you are willing. Go and run one more experiment for me. Go outside now and place your hand on the ground and say to the earth these words — “I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you.” Say it as many times as you feel like. Say it, and mean it. 

And then let’s see what happens next. 

____________________

The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone, or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish or use any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge.

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The successes of Russian diplomacy in the Middle East, by Thierry Meyssan

Posted by M. C. on August 21, 2019

Unlike the United States, Russia is not seeking to impose its own vision on the world. It begins on the contrary with the culture of its interlocutors, which it modifies by small touches at its contact.

https://www.voltairenet.org/article207382.html

by Thierry Meyssan

The political changes which have been transforming the Middle East for the last two months are not the result of the destruction of any of the protagonists, but the evolution of the Iranian, Turkish and Emirati points of view. Where the military might of the United States has failed, the subtlety of Russian diplomacy has succeeded. Refusing to comment on the crimes of one party or the other, Moscow is slowly managing pacify the region.

New balances of power and a new equilibrium are being set up discreetly in the Nile valley, in the Levant and the Arab peninsula. On the contrary, however, the situation is blocked in the Persian Gulf. This considerable and coordinated change is affecting different conflicts which in appearance have no connection with one another. It is the fruit of patient and discreet Russian diplomacy [1] and, in some cases, the relative good will of the USA.

Unlike the United States, Russia is not seeking to impose its own vision on the world. It begins on the contrary with the culture of its interlocutors, which it modifies by small touches at its contact.

The withdrawal of the jihadists and Kurdish mercenaries in Syria

Everything began on 3 July – one of the five founders of the PKK, Cemil Bayik, published an op ed in the Washington Post calling for Turkey to open negotiations by lifting the solitary confinement of their most famous prisoner – Abdullah Öcalan [2]. Suddenly, prison visits for the leader of the Kurdish autonomists in Turkey, forbidden for four years, were once again authorised. This opening was a secret for no-one. The rumour had been disseminated by the Peoples’ Republican Party, who considered it treason. While waiting for clarification, his electors abstained during the municipal election in Istanbul on 23 June, inflicting a severe electoral defeat on President Erdoğan’ candidate.

Simultaneously, combats flared again in the zone occupied by Al-Qaïda in the North of Syria, the governorate of Idlib. This Islamic Emirate has no central administration, but a multitude of cantons assigned to various combatant groups. The population is supplied by European « NGO’s » affiliated with the secret services of their countries, and the presence of the Turkish army prevents the jihadists from attempting to conquer the rest of Syria. Since this situation can not be openly admitted, the NATO Press presents the Islamic Emirate of Idlib as a peaceful refuge for « moderate opponents of Assad’s dictatorship ». Suddenly, Damascus, backed up by Russian air support, began to reconquer their territory as the Turkish army withdrew in silence. The combats were extremely violent, first of all for the Republic. However, after several weeks, the advance was clear, so that if nothing occurs to prevent it, the province could be liberated in October.

On 15 July, the third anniversary of the attempted assassination of which he was the object and the improvised coup d’état which followed, President Erdoğan announced the redefinition of Turkish identity, no longer on a religious, but a national basis [3]. He also revealed that his army was going to sweep the forces of the PKK out of Syria and transfer some of the Syrian refugees to a frontier zone approximately 30 to 40 kilometres deep. This zone more or less corresponds to that in which, in 1999, President Hafez el-Assad had authorised Turkish forces to suppress any Kurdish use of artillery. After having announced that the Pentagon would not abandon its Kurdish allies, US envoys came to Ankara to do just that, and to approve the Turkish plan. As we have always said, it so happens that the leaders of « Rojava », this pseudo autonomous Kurdish state in Syrian territory, are almost all of Turkish nationality. They are therefore occupying the area that they had ethically cleansed. Their troops, of Syrian nationality, sent emissaries to Damascus to ask for President Bachar el-Assad’s protection. Let’s remember that the Kurds are a nomad population which was settled at the beginning of the 20th century. According to the King-Crane Commission and the International Conference of Sèvres (1920), a Kurdistan state is only legitimate within what is currently Turkish territory [4].

It is unlikely that France and Germany will allow Syria to reconquer the totality of the Islamic Emirate of Idlib, and will abandon their fantasy concerning a Kurdistan, wherever it may be (in Turkey, Iran, Iraq or Syria, but not in Germany, where Kurds number a million). They may be forced to do so.

Similarly, despite the current discussions, it is unlikely that, should Syria be decentralised, it would grant the slightest autonomy to the region that was occupied by the Turkish Kurds.

After several years of blockage, the liberation of Northern Syria depends entirely on the change of the Turkish paradigm, fruit of the errors by the United States and Russian Intelligence.

The de facto partition of Yemen

In Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Israël support President Abdrabbo Mansour Hadi, with an aim to exploit the oil reserves which straddle the border [5]. The latter has to face up to the rebellion of the Zaïdis, a school of Chiism. With time, the Saudis have received help from the Emirati, and the Zaïdi Resistance is supported by Iran. This war, fuelled by the Western powers, has provoked the worst famine of the 21st century.

However, unlike the organisation of the two sides, on 1 August, the Emirati coast-guards signed an agreement for transborder cooperation with the Iranian frontier police [6]. The same day, the head of the Yemeni militia, Abu Al-Yamana Al-Yafei – financed by the Emirates (known as the « Southern Transitional Council (STC) », or « Safety Belt », or again « Separatists ») – was assassinated by the Muslim Brotherhood of the Islah party, financed by Saudi Arabia [7].

Clearly, the alliance between two crown princes of Arabia and the Emirates, Mohammed ben Salmane (« MBS ») and Mohammed ben Zayed Al Nahyane (« MBZ »), is under pressure.

On 11 August, the militia supported by the Emirates attacked the presidential palace and several ministries in Aden, despite the support of Arabia for President Hadi, who had been sheltered in Riyadh for a long time. The following day, « MBS » and « MBZ » met in Mecca in the presence of King Salmane. They rejected the coup d’etat and called for a display of calm on the part of their respective troops. On 17 August, the pro-Emiratis evacuated the houses of government in good order..

During the week in which the « Separatists » had taken Aden, the Emirates had de facto control over the two coasts from the very strategic detroit of Bab el Mandeb linking the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. Now that Riyadh has preserved its honour, it will be necessary to give something back to Abou Dhabi.

On the battlefield, the change can only be attributable to the Emirates, who, after heavy suffering, have learned the lesson of this unwinnable war. Prudently, they approached the Iranians before firing a warning shot intended for their powerful ally and neighbour, Saudi Arabia.

Musical chairs in Sudan

In Sudan, after President Omar el-Bechir (dissident Muslim Brother), had been overthrown by demonstrations of the Alliance for Freedom and Change (AFC) and the rise in bread prices had been cancelled, a Military Council of Transition was handed power. Practically speaking, this social revolt and a few billion petro-dollars enabled the country – unknown to the demonstrators – to transit from a Qatari tutorship to another, Saudi tutorship [8].

On 3 June, a new demonstration by the AFC was dispersed in blood by the Military Council of Transition, causing 127 deaths. Faced with international condemnation, the Military Council began negotiations with civilians and came to an agreement on 4 August which was signed on 17 August. For a period of 39 months, the country will be governed by a Supreme Council composed of 6 civilians and 5 military officials, whose agreements do not specify their identities. They will be controlled by an Assembly of 300 members – nominated but not elected – including 67 % of the representatives of the AFC. There is evidently nothing democratic here, and none of the parties is complaining.

The economist Abdallah Hamdok, ex-manager of the UN Economic Commission for Africa will become the Prime Minister. He should obtain the lifting of sanctions on Sudan and reintegrate the country into the African Union. He will bring to trial ex-President Omar el-Bechir in his own country in order to guarantee that he will no longer risk being extradited to The Hague and arraigned before the International Criminal Court.

Real power will be held by « General » Mohammed Hamdan Daglo (alias « Hemetti »), who is not a General, not even a soldier, but the head of the militia employed by « MBS » in order to paralyse the Yemeni Resistance. During this game of musical chairs, Turkey – which has a military base on the Sudanese island of Suakin as a means of encircling Saudi Arabia – has said nothing.

Thus Turkey is accepting to lose in Idlib and Sudan in order to win against the pro-US Kurdish mercenaries. Only this last wager has anything vital for Turkey. It has taken a wealth of discussions for Turkey to realise that it can not win all these games at once, and that it must organise its priories.

The United States against Iranian Oil

London and Washington are pursuing their concurrence, set in motion seventy years ago, to control Iranian oil. Just as during the time of Mohammad Mossadegh, the British Crown intends to be the only decider concerning what belongs to them in Iran [9]. Washington, however, does not want the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq to benefit Teheran (a consequence of the Rumsfeld/Cebrowski doctrine) and means to fix the prices for world energy (the Pompeo doctrine) [10].

These two strategies came together with the seizing of the Iranian oil-tanker Grace 1 in the waters of the British colony of Gibraltar. Iran, in its turn, boarded two British tankers in the straits of Ormuz, pretending – the supreme insult – that the primary was transporting « contraband oil», in other words Iranian oil which was subsidised by London on the black market [11]. When the new British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, realised that his country had gone too far, he had the « surprise » to see the « independent » justice of his colony liberate the Grace 1. Washington immediately issued a mandate to seize it again.

Since the beginning of this affair, the Europeans have been paying for US policy, and protesting without much consequence [12]. Only the Russians are defending international Law – rather than their Iranian ally – as they did concerning Syria [13]. This allows them to maintain a political line which is always coherent.

In this dossier, Iran is demonstrating great tenacity. Despite the clerical about-face of the election of Sheik Hassan Rohani, in 2013, the country has been redirecting itself towards the national policy of the secular Mahmoud Ahmadinejad [14]. Its use of the Chiite communities in Saudi Arabia, Bahreïn, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen could morph into a simple solution. Here too, the long discussions of Astana could demonstrate that what is evident for one has become evident for all.

Conclusion

With time, the objectives of each protagonist have been organised into a hierarchy and are becoming clearer.

In conformity with its tradition, Russian diplomacy, unlike that of the United States, is not attempting to redefine frontiers and alliances. It is working to untie the contradictory objectives of its partners. Thus it helped the ex-Ottoman Empire and the ex-Persian Empire distance themselves from their religious definition – (the Muslim Brotherhood for the former, and Chiism for the latter – and return to a post-Imperial national definition. This evolution is clearly visible in Turkey, but supposes a change of leaders in Iran in order to become operational. Moscow is not seeking to « change the régimes », but to change some aspects of the mentalities.

Translation
Pete Kimberley

 

Be seeing you

Do we have USA Army soldiers stationed in Iran? Do we have ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Militarization Of North Australia Is A Must To Win A War Against China, Report | Zero Hedge

Posted by M. C. on August 20, 2019

Australian international engagement in support of our strategic partnerships.”

Australia had been warned it must militarize its northern borders amid threats of Chinese expansion in the Indo-Pacific­ region and prepare for the US losing its “milit­ary primacy” in the area.

Guess who is doing the “warning”. I thought being being a US sock puppet was just a European thing.

Like it or not Chinese expansion in the Indo-Pacific region is akin to US expansion in the Caribbean. Except Chinese warships aren’t cruising off Key West.

Australians are a nominally independent bunch. Why they volunteer to become a suicide victim, point man in a US instigated war is beyond me.

Why aren’t the Liberals and Greens screaming bloody murder over the US military presence? Why are they buying the F-35 albatross? Trade sanctions? “Foreign Aid” promises?

The Aussie military is highly respected but small (60,000 active). That said, I suspect all China has to do is spend an afternoon cruise missiling a few big cities and Aussie priorities will be shifted inward.

A couple well placed nukes would do the trick. If that isn’t foremost in Scott Morrison’s mind, he has lost his mind.

I think Australia’s best bet is to be armed, prepared and transformed into a South Pacific Switzerland.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-08-19/report-militarization-north-australia-must-win-war-against-china

by Tyler Durden

Expanding on our June report, that outlined Australia is constructing a new naval port on its northern coast to counter a rising China in the Indo-Pacific­ region, Australian Defence Minister Linda Reynolds said the government recognized the “vital importance” of militarizing northern Australia for national security purposes.

Senator Reynolds said, “over $8 billion will be invested in defense infrastructure in the Northern Territory alone. Northern Australia is key to Australian international engagement in support of our strategic partnerships.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/2019-06-25_14-19-33_0.png?itok=T-BOpyLd

This comes at a time when Washington and its strategic allies are falling into Thucydides Trap, referring to China, the rising power, challenging the US, the status quo, could one day lead to a shooting war somewhere in the heavily contested South China Sea and western Pacific waters.

Senator Reynolds said Australia had been warned it must militarize its northern borders amid threats of Chinese expansion in the Indo-Pacific­ region and prepare for the US losing its “milit­ary primacy” in the area.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) and United States Studies Centre are expected to sound the alarm Monday on the lack of troops and military hardware in northern Australia and the need to increase weapon stockpiles and fuel reserves.

ASPI’s report requests the government to stress test defense, intelligence, and border security agencies in the North against sudden threats.

ASPI suggests troop deployment in the North is at decade lows calls for a “single scalable defense ­and national security ­ecosystem.”…

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NATO

 

 

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When, If Ever, Can We Lay This Burden Down? – Antiwar.com Original

Posted by M. C. on August 20, 2019

Iran presents no clear or present danger to U.S. vital interests, but the Saudis and Israelis see Iran as a mortal enemy, and want the U.S. military rid them of the menace.

In how many of these are U.S. vital interests imperiled? And in how many are we facing potential wars on behalf of other nations, while they hold our coat and egg us on?

https://original.antiwar.com/buchanan/2019/08/19/when-if-ever-can-we-lay-this-burden-down/

by

Friday, President Donald Trump met in New Jersey with his national security advisers and envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who is negotiating with the Taliban to bring about peace, and a U.S. withdrawal from America’s longest war.

U.S. troops have been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001, in a war that has cost 2,400 American lives.

Following the meeting, Trump tweeted, “Many on the opposite sides of this 19 year war, and us, are looking to make a deal – if possible!”

Some, however, want no deal; they are fighting for absolute power.

Saturday, a wedding in Kabul with a thousand guests was hit by a suicide bomber who, igniting his vest, massacred 63 people and wounded 200 in one of the greatest atrocities of the war. ISIS claimed responsibility.

Monday, 10 bombs exploded in restaurants and public squares in the eastern city of Jalalabad, wounding 66.

Trump is pressing Khalilzad to negotiate drawdowns of U.S. troop levels from the present 14,000, and to bring about a near-term end to U.S. involvement in a war that began after we overthrew the old Taliban regime for giving sanctuary to Osama bin Laden.

Is it too soon to ask: What have we gained from our longest war? Was all the blood and treasure invested worth it? And what does the future hold?

If the Taliban could not be defeated by an Afghan army, built up by the U.S. for a decade and backed by 100,000 U.S. troops in 2010-2011, then are the Taliban likely to give up the struggle when the U.S. is drawing down the last 14,000 troops and heading home?

The Taliban control more of the country than they have at any time since being overthrown in 2001. And time now seems to be on their side.

Why have they persevered, and prevailed in parts of the country?

Motivated by a fanatic faith, tribalism and nationalism, they have shown a willingness to die for a cause that seems more compelling to them than what the U.S.-backed Afghan government has on offer…

And Afghanistan is but one of the clashes and conflicts in which America is engaged.

Severe U.S. sanctions on Venezuela have failed to bring down the Nicholas Maduro regime in Caracas but have contributed to the immiseration of that people, 10% of whom have left the country. Trump now says he is considering a quarantine or blockade to force Maduro out.

Eight years after we helped to overthrow Col. Moammar Gadhafi, Libya is still mired in civil war, with its capital, Tripoli, under siege.

Yemen, among the world’s humanitarian disasters, has seen the UAE break with its Saudi interventionist allies, and secessionists split off southern Yemen from the Houthi-dominated north. Yet, still, Congress has been unable to force the Trump administration to end all support of the Saudi war.

Two thousand U.S. troops remain in Syria. The northern unit is deployed between our Syrian Kurd allies and the Turkish army. In the south, they are positioned to prevent Iran and Iranian-backed militias from creating a secure land bridge from Tehran to Baghdad to Damascus to Beirut.

In our confrontation with Iran, we have few allies…

Iran presents no clear or present danger to U.S. vital interests, but the Saudis and Israelis see Iran as a mortal enemy, and want the U.S. military rid them of the menace…

Around the world, America is involved in quarrels, clashes and confrontations with almost too many nations to count.

In how many of these are U.S. vital interests imperiled? And in how many are we facing potential wars on behalf of other nations, while they hold our coat and egg us on?

Be seeing you

steel helmet

How did I get here?

 

 

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The Deep State Reality | Armstrong Economics

Posted by M. C. on August 20, 2019

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/corruption/the-deep-state-reality/

by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Dear Mr. Armstrong
Isn’t the FBI a government agency?
In this case, they are paid with “the people” tax money?
Aren’t they supposed to be neutral, I mean, they should be “incorruptible”?
They should not take a position for the left or the right. They should be there for “Justice”?
Can you explain?
Many Thanks to you and your team for all your teachings.
Have a beautiful day
MF

ANSWER: What you say is the theory of a perfect world. Unfortunately, I believe that ever since Bush Jr was elected, the power shifted from the president to the bureaucracy. I have stated before that I use to meet with people who wanted to run for president for the Republicans as a vetting process. They were told I was there to inform them of the global economy and how it functioned, but in reality, I was told to determine if I believed they could handle the job. Then I was asked to run to Texas to meet with Bush Jr, but I was told this was different. I was told he was really “stupid” and they asked me if I would accept the position of Chief Economic Advisor to the president. I was shocked. I asked, “Why would you make someone stupid president?” Particularly since it was exactly opposite of what I had been asked to do for years. I was told he had the “name” to win.

I was told at that time they needed to surround him with “good people” and that is how Cheney became the de facto president. Naturally, I declined for I could not continue my business. Ever since that point in time, the bureaucracy rose to power. They took on a mantle of authority that no one has been able to challenge. Trump has tried, but look at what they have done to him. This is what people are calling the Deep State. The idea that we are free is only an illusion. We have no rights…

Be seeing you

?u=https3.bp.blogspot.com-AA5BfRPAvZcVfvOORWFnjIAAAAAAAARz8jPg5f97nkTMs1600Burl-Ives-Paul-Newman-Cat-on-a-Hot-Tin-Roof-1958.JPG&f=1

He smells mendacity.

 

 

 

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Climate Activist Greta Thunberg’s Yacht Trip to America More Harmful to Environment Than Flying – Summit News

Posted by M. C. on August 20, 2019

“A lecture, furthermore, from a child who hasn’t finished her schooling, whose frontal lobes haven’t formed, who has no sense of humour, whose every utterance is the second-hand opinion of alarmist grown-ups whose doomsday claims she is completely unequipped to assess?”

Not sure whether (insert gender-less pronoun of choice) is channeling Al Gore or Ocassional-Cortex.

https://summit.news/2019/08/16/climate-activist-greta-thunbergs-yacht-trip-to-america-more-harmful-to-environment-than-flying/

 

Climate activist Greta Thunberg’s virtue signalling trip on a $4 million dollar yacht to lecture Americans about climate change will be more harmful to the environment than if she had flown via aircraft.

Thunberg and her team set sail on the Malizia II for a voyage that will take 2 weeks to reach New York.

The mode of transport was deliberately chosen so Thunberg could relentlessly virtue signal about the evils of air travel.

But the entire trip is a complete farce.

As the German newspaper Taz points out, the yacht trip means more CO2 will be released into the atmosphere than if just Greta and her father had traveled by air because six members of her team have to fly back to Germany from New York.

“The sailing trip triggers at least six climate-damaging air travel across the Atlantic. If Thunberg had flown with her father, only two would have been necessary to come to New York,” reports Taz.

Indeed, a single flight from New York to Hamburg releases 1,800 kilograms of carbon dioxide, which equates to more than three quarters of what each person is entitled to a year if global warming is to be halted at 2 degrees.

As James Delingpole asks, besides the rank hypocrisy of her attention grabbing yacht trip, how exactly did Thunberg come to be the lecturing face of the environmentalist movement?

“A lecture, furthermore, from a child who hasn’t finished her schooling, whose frontal lobes haven’t formed, who has no sense of humour, whose every utterance is the second-hand opinion of alarmist grown-ups whose doomsday claims she is completely unequipped to assess?” he writes.

But despite wall to wall positive press coverage, ordinary people just aren’t buying it.

As we previously reported, German drivers have begun displaying ‘f*ck you Greta’ bumper stickers to let the 16-year-old and her handlers know exactly how they feel about being told what to do by a child.

Be seeing you

Algore airplane

 

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Antidepressants AGAIN: Dayton shooter found to have mind-altering SSRI drugs in his system – NaturalNews.com

Posted by M. C. on August 20, 2019

Partial repost for all of you that frequent sites that have banned Natural News.

https://www.naturalnews.com/2019-08-18-dayton-shooter-found-to-have-mind-altering-ssri-drugs-in-his-system.html

by:

Image: Antidepressants AGAIN: Dayton shooter found to have mind-altering SSRI drugs in his system

(Natural News) Just like we’ve long speculated, the latest news reports about “Dayton shooter” Connor Betts reveal that the now-deceased 24-year-old did, in fact, have SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) antidepressant pharmaceuticals in his system at the time when he’s said to have gone on a mass shooting spree, killing his sister, her boyfriend, and seven other people before allegedly killing himself.

According to an autopsy report, Betts had not only been taking mind-altering SSRIs in the lead-up to his murder melee, but he was also taking cocaine, Xanax, and alcohol, three other deadly drugs linked to extreme violence. In other words, Betts was severely mind-altered by a combination of Big Pharma and Big Alcohol when he decided to take the lives of innocent people for no apparent reason.

Mainstream news outlets are finally admitting the truth that, rather than being the gun’s fault, it was actually the legal and illegal narcotics that Betts had been taking that ultimately drove him to murder his fellow human beings in cold blood – these brain-damaging chemicals apparently manipulating the young man into doing something horrific that he otherwise may not have done.

Los Angeles Times report confirms that most mass shooters have mental health issues likely linked to SSRIs and other pharma pills

Interestingly enough, the Los Angeles Times recently put out a report covering many of the mass shootings that have taken place over the past several decades. What it reveals is that, just as Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, has long been saying, pharmaceutical use is often directly linked to these shootings, as mind-altering medications can convinced traumatized youth especially to harm themselves and others…

Be seeing you

beaver

Hey Wally, mom is taking her little helpers again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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ROBOT BATTLESHIP US Navy to build £330m world’s largest robot warship to patrol the most dangerous seas

Posted by M. C. on August 19, 2019

Maybe, just maybe the Navy should concentrate on planes that meet spec and aircraft carriers that can actually launch aircraft.

Just as with drones, let us hope some poor fishing captain using a mop on deck isn’t taken as holding a rocket launcher.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9747088/us-navy-robot-warship-unmanned/

Jon Rogers 18 Aug 2019, 15:50Updated: 19 Aug 2019, 10:27

THE US Navy wants to build a fleet of ten robot warships over the next five years.

The huge ships referred to as Large Unmanned Surface Vehicles (LUSVs) would function as scouts for the main battle fleet, carrying radar and sonar as well as anti-air and cruise missiles.

The new LUSV will build upon the unmanned Sea Hunter, seen here in Portland in 2016

2
The new LUSV will build upon the unmanned Sea Hunter, seen here in Portland in 2016

The vessels will mostly carry out “3D work” – dull, dirty and dangerous…

Be seeing you

Robots battle for underwater supremacy | Fox News

 

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NSA asks Congress to permanently reauthorize spying program that was so shambolic, the snoops had shut it down • The Register

Posted by M. C. on August 19, 2019

No matter which way you look at it, two things are clear: one, ordinary Americans are being screwed over; and two, there is insufficient accountability at the highest levels of government.

Like a cockroach, the NSA never dies.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/08/16/spying_reauthorization_coats/

By Kieren McCarthy in San Francisco

Analysis In the clearest possible sign that the US intelligence services live within their own political bubble, the director of national intelligence has asked Congress to reauthorize a spying program that the NSA itself decided to shut down after it repeatedly – and illegally – gathered the call records of millions of innocent Americans.

Not only that but in a letter from Dan Coats to the heads of two key Senate committees, the director argues that the powers should be permanently reauthorized, rather than put into a law bill that requires renewal: an approach that has long been standard when it comes to awarding extraordinary powers to Uncle Sam’s snoops.

Coats’ letter [PDF] was sent yesterday, his last day in office, and ahead of a December cut-off for the spying powers that are contained within Section 215 of the Patriot Act. It was first obtained by the New York Times.

The powers he refers to have been hugely controversial ever since they were revealed by Edward Snowden in 2013. In fact the program, which relies on two different, ridiculous, interpretations of the law has repeatedly been found to be unconstitutional.

Even after the law was changed, the NSA has been unable to make the system work and has twice been forced to admit that it gathered millions of call records it shouldn’t have. Back in June 2018, it deleted 534 million call records that it had gathered the previous year but gave virtually no details over how and why that had happened, prompting inquiries from senators – who were roundly ignored.

Then the exact same thing happened again just a few months later – in October 2018. That massive slurp of personal information was again kept quiet and only emerged in June 2019 when a report of the NSA’s inspector general was declassified following a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

We’ll probably just ditch it

The intelligence services were well aware that the second failure of its system was due to become public, and so it started letting congressional aides know that it thinking about axing the program in early 2019.

In a sign of just how little oversight there is over malfunctioning spy programs, the fact that the NSA was considering ditching the program only came out when the national security adviser to House minority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) mentioned it during a podcast interview….

Since then, the NSA has repeatedly refused to discuss the program or even confirm that it has stopped the program. However in a sign that it has been talking behind the scenes to key senators, a law bill intended to reauthorize the spying powers before December notably did not include this specific program (it does include three other spying measures.)

Many had assumed that was the end of it. But Coats in his letter this week not only suggests reauthorizing the program but says it should be done so on a permanent basis – meaning that there will be even less accountability since Congress will not be in a position to ask questions and threaten to let the powers expire if they are not answered.

It’s a shambles but we like it

And if all that wasn’t sufficiently mind-boggling, Coats explicitly acknowledges that the program is a mess but says the NSA should have the powers anyway in case they prove useful in future…

As such, Trump is extremely skeptical of surveillance powers and the security services and, given a clear choice, would likely prevent their reauthorization. In that respect, Coats’ letter could be a seen as a last-ditch effort to lock spying powers in place before he loses his influence.

No matter which way you look at it, two things are clear: one, ordinary Americans are being screwed over; and two, there is insufficient accountability at the highest levels of government.

Be seeing you

Message In A Bottle (Sort of) - Granite Grok

 

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