Archives‎ > ‎

Jewish media crusade against Putin, from Peter Myers

(1) Jewish neo-cons & Brzezinski (Polish) hate for Putin - Francis Boyle

(2) Vladimir Putin, defiant pariah - The Economist

(3) How an Outraged Europe Agreed to a Hard Line on Putin - NYT

(4) Jewish-owned NYT & WaPO crusade against Putin’s Russia

(5) Michael Goodwin, former bureau chief, blames NYT & WaPo for destruction of journalistic standards

(6) Four Days to Declare a Cold War - THIERRY MEYSSAN

 

(1) Jewish neo-cons & Brzezinski (Polish) hate for Putin - Francis Boyle

http://english.pravda.ru/news/world/16-02-2015/129834-brzezinski_russia-0/

Francis Boyle: Brzezinski wants to break Russia up into constituent units. Why does Obama hate Russia?

Pravda.Ru interviewed Francis Anthony Boyle, a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law about the current political situation in the world. We asked the professor to comment on whether the crisis between Russia and the West is as dangerous as it seems to be.

[...] Why is the West convinced that Russia can be broken down with the sanctions?

I regret to say what we are seeing here in the Unites States are the ascendancy of two factions in this country who are against Russia and the Russians. First is Brzezinski, who was Obama's mentor when Obama was a college student in Columbia, and Brzezinski in 2008 ran all the foreign affairs and defence policies of the Obama presidential campaign and has stacked his administration with advisor on Russia at the National Security Council comes from the Brzezinski's outpoll CSIS there in Washington D.C. I graduated from the same Ph.D. programme at Harvard that produced Brzezinski before me.

He is a die-hard Russian hater, he hates Russia, he hates the Russian, and he wants to break Russia up into its constituent units, and, unfortunately, he has his people, his proteges in the Democratic Party and in this Administration. Second faction lining against Russia are the neo-conservatives, for e.g. this latest Brookings Institute report calling for arming the Ukrainian military in these Nazi formations which is now reflected in this latest bill just introduced into the Congress yesterday, and the neoconservatives feel exactly the same way against Russia and the Russians.

I went to school with large numbers of these neoconservatives at the University of Chicago, Wolfowitz and all the rest of them. Many of them are grandchildren of Jewish people, who fled the pogroms against Jews, and they have been brainwashed against Russia and the Russians. So you have two very powerful factions here in the United States against Russia and the Russians who are driving this policy, and I regret to report there are very few voices opposing this.

So in my assessment, the situation this is the dilemma that confronts Russia today, that confronts President Putin and it also certainly confronts me having gone to school with most these people both at Chicago and Harvard and opposing them for a generation, and all peace-loving people in America that somehow here in the United States we are going to have to figure out a way to reign {sic} these people in to avoid the direct military confrontation between Russia and the United States that very well could occur if things get out of control there in Ukraine. So it's an extremely dangerous situation for both Russia and the united states. There's no question about it. I haven't seen any thing this dangerous in my lifetime since the Cuba missile crisis that I personally lived through the 1962 and it inspired me to spend ten years in studying the Soviet Union Russia at the University Chicago and Harvard - two of the leading centres for training experts in this area in the United States. So it's extremely dangerous, I could not underestimate how dangerous the situation is.

(2) Vladimir Putin, defiant pariah - The Economist

https://www.economist.com/news/europe/21739661-appalled-chemical-attack-britain-america-joins-its-allies-protest-western-governments

Western governments expel Russian diplomats America joins its allies in protest

Print edition | Europe

Mar 31st 2018 | WASHINGTON, DC

IT IS one thing to stand defiant and aloof on the world stage, another to be a pariah. That is the message that Western governments hope President Vladimir Putin will absorb as he digests the co-ordinated expulsion of over 130 Russian diplomats by more than two dozen countries, in response to a nerve-agent attack in Britain. America’s decision to throw out 60 Russian officials accused of spying under diplomatic cover was that country’s largest such action, exceeding even expulsions in the chilliest years of the cold war. President Donald Trump’s government also ordered the Russian consulate in Seattle to close, citing its proximity to a nuclear submarine base and to the headquarters of Boeing, an aircraft maker.

Foreign leaders, notably those from Britain, France and Germany, used a European Union summit and a flurry of telephone diplomacy to urge allies to act in concert. Suspected spooks were given their marching orders from Oslo to Ottawa, and from Copenhagen to Canberra. New Zealand shyly admitted it knew of no undeclared Russian agents on its soil, and so could not join the effort. The NATO military alliance asked seven Russians to leave and ordered Russia’s mission at its Brussels headquarters to shrink by a third.

Western leaders took care to explain that their confrontation is with Mr Putin and his cronies. A Trump aide’s briefing on the expulsions on March 26th began with an expression of condolences for scores of children and adults killed in a fire in a Siberian entertainment complex. The blaze in the city of Kemerovo inspired public protests after investigators said a fire alarm had been switched off and exits blocked. America draws "a distinction between the Russian people and the actions of their government", the Trump aide said.

The same White House briefing called the expulsion of 60 alleged spooks, including 12 at the UN in New York, an act of solidarity with America’s closest ally after "a reckless attempt by the [Russian] government to murder a British citizen and his daughter on British soil with a military-grade nerve agent".

Mr Trump himself did not announce or explain the expulsions on March 26th. His thumbs were busy in the days after Britain said Russia’s government used a nerve agent, Novichok, in the streets of an English cathedral city in a bid to kill a former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter, Yulia. Trump tweets condemned a terrorist attack in France and denied that he is struggling to recruit good lawyers. The president tweeted that he would win a fight with the former vice-president, Joe Biden, who would "go down fast and hard, crying all the way". But his Twitter account was silent as 60 Russians were ordered out of his country. Indeed, Mr Trump has never breathed a word of criticism of Mr Putin. The most benign account, from Mr Trump’s defenders, is that he takes a monarchical view of geopolitics, seeking respectful relations with leaders who impress him, even as underlings scrap. Others have less flattering explanations.

Russia’s state media and proxies denied Russia’s involvement in the Skripal poisoning and offered some fanciful alternative theories. They claimed that America invented Novichok, that Britain carried out the poison attack to frame Russia or accidentally allowed nerve agents to leak from a chemical-weapons-research facility, that Ukraine is behind the whole thing and that defectors are prone to suicide.

To Russian propagandists, confusion is a friend. Their aim is to not to convince but to foment cynicism, apathy and a sense that believing official accounts is for chumps. Russia also likes to divide Europe. Austria, Greece, Cyprus and Portugal declined to expel Russians. In Italy and the Czech Republic pro-Putin nationalist politicians questioned the expulsions.

Still, Russia’s brazenness is raising the costs of being a Putin apologist. Brexit Britain and Mr Trump’s America are re-learning the power of alliances such as the EU and NATO. Isolation has its downsides.

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline "The defiant pariah"

(3) How an Outraged Europe Agreed to a Hard Line on Putin - NYT

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/26/world/europe/russia-poisoning-expulsions.html

How an Outraged Europe Agreed to a Hard Line on Putin

by STEVEN ERLANGER

MARCH 26, 2018

BRUSSELS — When leaders of the European Union gathered last Thursday night for a working dinner inside their lavish new headquarters, the conversation turned to Russia. Over scallops and lamb, Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain shared intelligence detailing the high probability that the Russian state had carried out the poisoning of a former Russian spy on British soil.

Usually, Mrs. May is the odd woman out at European Union gatherings, given that she is trying to negotiate Britain’s departure from the bloc. But not this time.

By the next morning, European Union leaders agreed that a coordinated response was needed, according to four senior European officials. Then President Emmanuel Macron of France said everyone should go home and consider expelling Russian diplomats.

“Let’s do it on Monday at 3 p.m.,” the French president said, according to one of the senior officials, all of whom asked for anonymity given the sensitivity of the issue.

The European Union is not usually a model of decisiveness, but the expulsion of Russian diplomats across the Continent on Monday was a dramatic and pointed gesture. It came in concert with a similar, larger move by the United States, which expelled 60 Russians, and signaled a new, tougher effort to punish bad behavior by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.Continue reading the main story

“I can’t think of any previous occasion when so many countries have coordinated on expulsions,” said Ian Bond, a former British diplomat in Moscow, adding that for many of the smaller countries, “it’s the first time since the Cold War that they’ve even expelled one Russian diplomat.”

Russia is always a tricky issue for the European Union, given its critical role as an energy supplier to the Continent, as well as the divided opinion among leaders on how confrontational, or not, the bloc should be with Mr. Putin.

But the March 4 poisoning in Salisbury, England, of the former Russian spy, Sergei V. Skripal, and his daughter, Yulia, crossed a line. The British authorities say they were exposed to the nerve agent Novichok, representing the first use of a chemical agent on European soil since the Second World War.

The brazen nature of the act was too much for European officials to ignore.

“This is an intelligence operation carried out with intelligence capacity with weaponized, weapons-grade chemical agents,” one senior European official said. “It has taken matters to an entirely different level.”

Alluding to Russia’s earlier aggressions in Ukraine, the senior official added, “Russia keeps violating international law in Crimea and Ukraine and unwritten rules on nonintervention, and now there is the use of nerve agents in Britain.”

In Britain, Mrs. May had already expelled 23 Russian diplomats earlier this month, while members of her cabinet spoke in increasingly strident tones against Mr. Putin. Her remarks last Thursday night seemed to stiffen the spines of other European leaders.

Mr. Macron and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany were prominent supporters of Mrs. May’s call for action, having planned tactics with Britain before the dinner. The French had provided the British with technical assistance on analyzing the poisoning case and come to the same conclusion. And when the Franco-German couple agree, others tend to fall into line, even if grumpily.

The decision was finalized Monday morning, as European Union ambassadors met in Brussels to describe what each country was prepared to do. A statement was prepared for Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, at a meeting in Bulgaria, and the result was extraordinary: 16 European Union countries had agreed to expel one or more Russian diplomats, and others, like Ireland, were considering joining.Photo

Europeans have gotten used to the fact that between one-third and half of all the Russians at Western embassies, the European Union and NATO are working in intelligence, the official said. But Russia has now made that impossible to ignore.

There was satisfaction in Brussels over the outcome, with even Hungary, which has warm relations with Mr. Putin, agreeing to expel a Russian diplomat. Greece and Cyprus, with close ties to Moscow, were unwilling to do so without a smoking gun, and some small countries, like Malta, did not want to lose all representation in Moscow and risk breaking relations entirely.

Austria was disappointing to some, refusing to expel anyone now that the far-right Freedom Party controls the Interior Ministry.

Bulgaria, which is currently holding the bloc’s rotating presidency, begged off, citing the need for neutrality, though its ties to Moscow are clear.

“We all back Britain’s position,” Prime Minister Boiko Borisov of Bulgaria said on Friday. “While there is high likelihood, but no evidence, we cannot decide on the matter.”

The Czech Republic, which expelled three Russians, was a particularly interesting case, because the messaging was divided, even as Russian media outlets had suggested that the nerve agent could have come through there.

Acting Prime Minister Andrej Babis said on Monday, “If our ally is in a serious situation and asks for help, we should come forward.”

“Russia has crossed all limits when it declared that the poisonous substance Novichok might have come from the Czech Republic,” he added. “It is a complete lie and we strongly deny it.”

But the country’s more pro-Russian president, Milos Zeman, opposed the expulsions. In a statement, he called on the country’s intelligence services to examine if Novichok was ever made or stored in the country — even though government officials have denied it.

The Italian reaction troubled some, given the negotiations going on for a new government after the strong showing of populist parties in the recent election. Matteo Salvini, the leader of the League party, is an ally of Mr. Putin and criticized the expulsions.

“To boycott Russia, renew the sanctions and expel its diplomats doesn’t resolve problems, it aggravates them,” he wrote on Monday after Italy announced it would expel two Russian diplomats. “Dialogue is better. I want a government that works for a future of peace, growth and security. Am I asking too much?”

In Brussels, some officials said the coordinated expulsions proved that European solidarity can transcend even Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, known as Brexit, or the acrimonious negotiations over that decision. Others disagreed, yet Monday’s expulsions were clearly a win for Mrs. May. 

In her statement to the House of Commons on Monday, Mrs. May said she had argued to European colleagues “that there should be a reappraisal of how our collective efforts can best tackle the challenge that Russia poses following President Putin’s re-election.”

She singled out France and Germany, adding, “In my discussions with President Macron and Chancellor Merkel, as well as other leaders, we agreed on the importance of sending a strong European message in response to Russia’s actions — not just out of solidarity with the U.K. but recognizing the threat posed to the national security of all E.U. countries.”

Correction: March 27, 2018

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated when a chemical agent was last used on European soil. The poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter was the first use of a chemical agent on European soil since the Second World War, not since before the Second World War.

Reporting was contributed by Marc Santora from Warsaw; Stephen Castle from London; Jason Horowitz from Rome; Boryana Dzhambazova from Sofia, Bulgaria; Hana de Goeij from Prague; and Milan Schreuer from Brussels.

A version of this article appears in print on March 27, 2018, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Brexit Aside, Europe Rallies Behind Britain.

(4) Jewish-owned NYT & WaPO crusade against Putin’s Russia

http://www.unz.com/article/its-time-to-drop-the-jew-taboo/

It's Time to Drop the Jew Taboo

CHARLES BAUSMAN

JANUARY 15, 2018

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A Jewish bolshevik disrupting an Easter midnight service. Detail from a larger monumental painting by Ilya Glazunov

1. Introduction

Most people know about, but few are willing to condemn, the strict taboo in the media, of criticizing Jews as a group, using that term. One cannot even criticize a small subsection of Jews, a miniscule percentage of the Jewish population, even when they richly deserve it.

Obviously, this is a ridiculous way to run a publication whose object is to get to the truth, so I am writing this to explain why, from now on, the pages of Russia Insider will be open to articles which fairly and honestly address the influence of Jewish elites, including pointing out when it is malevolent, which it often is, and try to understand it and explain it, with malice towards none.

I have become convinced that unless we break this taboo, nothing will improve in the human catastrophe unfolding in geopolitics. Millions have died over the past 30 years, and if we want it to stop, and to avoid a cataclysm which seems to approach inexorably, we have to have the freedom to criticize those responsible. It is very clear to me, as it is to many others, that much of the guilt for this comes from Jewish pressure groups, particularly in the media.

A detail from the monumental painting \ A detail from the monumental painting 'The Great Experiment' (1990) by Ilya Glazunov, which has many references to the Jewish role in the Russian Revolution

I can see as an editor, that much of what is written about geopolitics in the ‘public square’, admirable thought it may be in other respects, makes itself irrelevant by tiptoeing around this crucial issue.

I am a newcomer to the media world, unexpectedly thrust three years ago into the role of owner, publisher and editor of this fairly widely read publication. We get about 10 million visits per month across all of our platforms from a sophisticated audience, and we are widely followed by so- called ‘influencers’. We’ve made a big mark in a short time, and we did it by saying what others were not willing to say. Many subjects which we were the first to speak about on a major platform have now entered the mainstream.

Russia Insider is a grassroots phenomenon, and sometimes resembles a political movement as much as it does a publication. We exist solely because of small donations from readers. We get no funding from major donors, not to mention governments, foundations, or other organized groups. It is all private individuals. Our single largest donation over the past year was $5000, and the median gift is $30. We raised about $80,000 last year. This gives us the freedom to pretty much say what we want, something that can be said of very few publications, even in the alternative media space, most of whom are beholden to large donors.

I see everyday how one can influence the public agenda by addressing or ignoring certain topics. One really can make a difference, and I have tried to have a positive impact, as I understand it. It has been a remarkable education in the power of the media, even of our relatively small Russia Insider.

But this taboo is the great exception. It really is quite extraordinary, to realize that you can publish about just about anything, except that. As I said, just about everyone knows about the taboo, and I did too in my previous career in business, but it is another thing altogether to enforce it, which I felt, until recently, compelled to do, and to have your nose rubbed in it every day when trying to make sense of world events.

2. The euphemisms

Some try to skirt the taboo with euphemisms. A veritable cottage industry has emerged inventing ever new ones, indeed, this is the new trend in the alt-media. We hear a lot about ‘Zionists’, ‘elites’, ‘global elites’, ‘globalists’, ‘neocons’, ‘liberal interventionists’, ‘the war party’, ‘the Israel lobby’, ‘the deep state’, ‘bankers’, ‘new world order’ (I never understood what that is actually), ‘Bilderbergers’ – sounds like a nice man from a central-European fairytale. My friend the Saker goes with ‘Anglozionists’.

But none of these terms work, do they? They all obscure the issue, actually enhancing the taboo’s inherent deceit.

Zionists? Really? I’ve never heard anyone describe themselves this way, or even other people describe them – ‘Have you meet Max?, he’s an enthusiastic Zionist!’ I’ve never seen it mentioned as an interest in a social media profile (perhaps Facebook should include it as an Emoticon). Maybe Rachel Maddow IS a Zionist, what do I know, although as far as I understand, Zionism was a political movement that lost its urgency once the state of Israel was well on its merry way. Elites? Well, no, I would reckon many Jews are elites, but more Jews are not, and more elites are non- Jews, so no, that doesn’t work. Well, you get the idea. These are attempts to slip past the ever-zealous censor, and they serve to maintain the confusion and deception.

No, the only trait that these people have in common, is their Jewish heritage. Some are liberals, some are conservatives. Some are religious, some are not. Some are mixed Jewish heritage, some are not. Some care about Israel, some do not. Some support Israel others criticize her. They are politicians, journalists, academics, comedians, actors, or, businessmen. Some stem from Western Europe, others from Eastern Europe, and others from the Middle East.

3. Hostility to Putin’s Russia is largely a Jewish phenomenon

Russia Insider‘s mission is to explain and describe Russia and her role in the world. As soon as you begin to drill into how other nations relate to Russia, and Russian history, it becomes obvious that the unreasonable hostility towards Putin’s Russia, particularly coming from the US and the UK, is very much a Jewish phenomenon, and has been for centuries.

And yes, ‘Jewish’ is the only term that accurately describes it, and not one of the many euphemisms we frequently see used.

The most vitriolic and obsessive Russia-bashing journalists in the media are mostly Jewish. The publications which push these writers most energetically are ALL Jewish-owned, and as a publisher, I know very well, that is where the buck stops.

On the policy side, the neo-conservative movement, Russia’s harshest foe, was conceived of, is led by, and consists mostly of, Jews. And their trouble-making extends far beyond Russia – they are responsible for America’s disastrous debacle in the Middle East over the last 20 years – where their crimes have been stymied by precisely one country – Russia. The psychotically anti-Russian recent UN ambassadors, Nikki Haley and Samantha Power, were put there by the Israel lobby, and given an independent brief, in other words, they answer not to their presidents, rather to their Jewish sponsors.

In Congress the biggest Russia-Gate tub-thumpers are noticeably Jewish – Schiff, Schumer, Blumenthal, Franken (although not as overwhelmingly as in the media). The Israel lobby routinely enforces legislation hostile to Russia. Bill Browder with his Magnitsky Sanctions – is Jewish.

4. The media

But let’s talk about the media – for this is where the real power lies. All other levers and branches of government pale in comparison when it comes to real political influence.

The two leading newspapers of the land, the New York Times and The Washington Post, both very Jewish in ownership, editors, and staff, have been waging an all-out jihad against Putin’s Russia, and are guilty of the most grotesque dishonesty, slander and journalistic malpractice – exhaustively catalogued by one of the most authoritative and admired veteran journalists in America, Robert Parry, winner of the Polk award among other accolades. You can see an archive of his extraordinary work criticizing these two publications, particularly in relation to Russia, here.

PBS, with its lily-white image as purveyor of Masterpiece Theater and other highbrow offerings, is wholly dependent on donations from wealthy Jews. Like some Gentile starlet submitting to Harvey Weinstein, that station has allowed itself to be used, churning out a relentless stream of the most ridiculous anti-Putin propaganda that would be funny if it wasn’t so effective among the gray-haired, non-flyover denizens of America, and their deep pocketbooks. CNN, a deeply Jewish company, has been pushing Russiagate like a religion, to the point to where their brand has suffered severe damage.

Rachel Maddow, the nation’s most popular and influential liberal political show host is Jewish. She has gone so overboard demonizing Russia and pushing Russiagate that she has become a figure of fun. On the print side, the list is the same – the ones shrieking the loudest are mostly Jews, and disproportionately female – and there is an important lesson there too – Masha Gessen, Anne Applebaum, and Julia loffe, to name a few.

The refrain from the male chorus is no less strident. David Remnick, David Frum, Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer. Even comedy news hates Russia – John Oliver, Jon Stewart (previously), Bill Maher, all Jews, go to great efforts to convince Americans that Putin’s Russia is, quite literally, – and this term is frequently used – ‘Hitlerian.’

Jewish-owned high brow magazines have been leading the charge against Putin – the Newhouse’s New Yorker, the NY Review of Books (the management of this venerable magazine is obsessed with the subject). The New Republic, Newsweek, The Atlantic, and the Rothschild-owned Economist pump out story after story full of what can only be called lies, in a massive campaign to demonize Russia and Putin.

Timothy Snyder, the Yale historian, and Michael Weiss, the neocon firebrand whose website, The Interpreter, is funded by the exiled Jewish oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, are two more prominent figures in this phenomenon.

The Economist deserves special mention with Ed Lucas leading the charge (he is the great nephew of Charles Portal, a Jewish air marshal in Britain who was a relentless proponent of fire-bombing German civilians and is thought to be behind the burning of Dresden). Equally vitriolic are the writings of Ben Judah and his father, Tim.

But to draw attention to all this, or to investigate whether there is something about their Jewishness that makes them so hostile to Russia, is simply, verboten. Inevitably, when I point out this overwhelming ethnic imbalance, people say, well what about the many critics of the hostility to Russia who are Jewish? – the eminently admirable Glenn Greenwald is a prominent example, and there are many others. The answer is, that the exception to a trend doesn’t disprove it, and can often serve to mask it.

5. A de facto violation of free speech

The truth is, that in a nation which frantically pats itself on the shoulder for enshrining ‘free speech’ in its national credo, and ceaselessly lectures others on the subject with pompous sanctimony, speech is not de facto free on this crucial and world-threatening subject, a remarkable, and dangerous, state of affairs. I will not be clapped into prison for publishing this article, but the taboo works like a charm to keep the topic out of public discussion. Who needs repressive laws when you can con people into censoring themselves? In Germany, the dominant power in Europe, and in other European countries, I could be locked up for it – another shocking thought, for this son of Germany.

The Jewish dominance of the Russia-bashing phenomenon is far more extensive than I can convey in a couple of short paragraphs, and I urge someone to do this in a more systematic way. I will be happy to publish it.

6. Shutting down an honest examination of Russian history

One of the most spectacular aspects of the taboo is how it whitewashes one of the most extraordinary events in the history of mankind, the Russian revolution.

Many White Russians fleeing the revolution believed that it was mostly a Jewish coup d’etat, financed by wealthy bankers in New York and London who were sworn enemies of Christian Tsarism. Indeed there is strong evidence to suggest that this is true. This view argues that the terror visited on Russia during the civil war and its aftermath, continuing well into the Stalin years, for he could not really control it either, was a Jewish one. Cursory evidence also suggests that this is so, if only because so much of the Bolshevik leadership was Jewish, in particular, Trotsky, but also many other vicious personalities, especially in the secret police which so terrorized the Russian people.

Henry Ford was heavily influenced by this view, which he heard from Russian emigres, augmenting his anti-semitism, and it has been well-documented by liberal mainstream historians that the German National Socialist movement became radically more anti-semitic in reaction to this interpretation, which they adopted, strongly influenced by an influx of White Russians finding refuge in Europe. But one doesn’t hear a whisper about all this in mainstream historical articles, even to debunk it, presumably because someone might have their ‘feelings’ hurt.

This all reverberates to this day. The virulent and entrenched anti-semitism in today’s Ukraine is a direct heir of this White Russian view. This is because the Nazis had long-standing subversive programs implemented by their White Russian allies inside Ukraine and the Baltics, which were heavily German in ethnicity. The famines of the 30s increased the sentiment. When Hitler invaded this work paid off magnificently, and Western Ukraine enthusiastically welcomed him and fought with his armies, as did many in the Baltics. After the war, German intelligence, in return for clemency, traded this network to the CIA, which continued the program to destabilize the USSR, and these programs, representing significant financial and institutional support continued right through the cold war, and into the present day. [...]

(5) Michael Goodwin, former bureau chief, blames NYT & WaPo for destruction of journalistic standards

 https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2018/03/21/finally-some-good-news/

Finally, Some Good News

By Paul Craig Roberts

Mar 21, 2018

There’s been some mainstream recognition of how the US establishment media have destroyed journalistic standards, including its propagation of politically motivated lies about Russia.

Washington’s gratuitous raising of tensions with Russia that we have been witnessing for many years is so reckless and irresponsible that we need some relief from the depression of it all. Perhaps I am grasping at straws, but here are some hopeful developments.

—An establishment journalist, Michael Goodwin, the chief political columnist for the New York Post and a former bureau chief for the New York Times, has blamed the New York Times and Washington Post for the destruction of journalistic standards in the United States.

—James Kallstrom, a former Assistant Director of the FBI, told Fox News that high-ranking people throughout the US government coordinated a plot to help Hillary Clinton avoid indictment:

“I think we have ample facts revealed to us during this last year and a half that high-ranking people throughout government, not just the FBI, high-ranking people had a plot to not have Hillary Clinton, you know, indicted.

“I think it goes right to the top. And it involves that whole [Russiagate] strategy—they were gonna win, nobody would have known any of this stuff, and they just unleashed the intelligence community. Look at the unmaskings. We haven’t heard anything about that yet. Look at the way they violated the rights of all those American citizens.” ...

This article was originally published at PaulCraigRoberts.org on March 19, 2018.

(6) Four Days to Declare a Cold War - THIERRY MEYSSAN

http://www.voltairenet.org/article200232.html

http://www.unz.com/article/four-days-to-declare-a-cold-war

THIERRY MEYSSAN

VOLTAIRE NETWORK | DAMASCUS (SYRIA) | 20 MARCH 2018

The week that has just ended was exceptionally rich in events. But no media were able to report it, because they had all deliberately masked certain of their number in order to protect the story that was being woven by their government. London had attempted to provoke a major conflict, but lost to Russia, President Trump and Syria.

The British government and certain of its allies, including US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, have attempted to launch a Cold War against Russia.

Their plan was to fabricate an attack against an ex-double agent in Salisbury and at the same time a chemical attack against the « moderate rebels » in the Ghouta. The conspirators’ intention was to profit from the efforts of Syria to liberate the suburbs of its capital city and the disorganisation of Russia on the occasion of its Presidential election. Had these manipulations worked, the United Kingdom would have pushed the USA to bomb Damascus, including the Presidential palace, and demand that the United Nations General Assembly exclude Russia from the Security Council.

However, the Syrian and Russian Intelligence Services got wind of what was being plotted. They realised that the US agents in the Ghouta who were preparing an attack against the Ghouta were not working for the Pentagon, but for another US agency.

In Damascus, the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, Fayçal Miqdad, set up an emergency Press conference for 10 March, in order to alert his fellow citizens. From its own side, Moscow had first of all tried to contact Washington via the diplomatic channels. But aware that the US ambassador, Jon Huntsman Jr, is the director of Caterpillar, the company which had supplied tunneling materials to the jihadists so that they could build their fortifications, Moscow decided to bypass the usual diplomatic channels.

Here’s how things played out:

12 March 2018

The Syrian army seized two chemical weapons laboratories, the first on 12 March in Aftris, and the second on the following day in Chifonya. Meanwhile, Russian diplomats pushed the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to get involved in the criminal investigation in Salisbury.

In the House of Commons, British Prime Minister Theresa May violently accused Russia of having ordered the attack in Salisbury. According to her, the ex-double agent Sergueï Skripal and his daughter were poisoned by a military nerve gas of a type « developed by Russia » under the name of « Novitchok ». Since the Kremlin considers Russian citizens who have defected as legitimate targets, it is therefore highly likely that they ordered the crime.

« Novitchok » is known by what has been revealed by two Soviet personalities, Lev Fyodorov and Vil Mirzayanov. The scientist Fyodorov published an article in the Russian weekly Top Secret (?? ??) in July 1992, warning about the extremely dangerous nature of this product, and warning against the use of old Soviet weaponry by the Western powers to destroy the environment in Russia and make it unlivable. In October 1992, he published a second article in the News of Moscow (?? ???) with a counter-espionage executive, Mirzayanov, denouncing the corruption of certain generals and the traffic of « Novitchok » in which they were involved. However, they did not know to whom they may have sold the product. Mirzayanov was first of all arrested for high treason, then released. Fyodorov died in Russia last August, but Mirzayanov is living in exile in the United States, where he collaborates with the Department of Defense. « Novitchok » was fabricated in a Soviet laboratory in Nurus, in what is now Uzbekistan. During the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it was destroyed by a US team of specialists. Uzbekistan and the United States, by necessity, have therefore possessed and studied samples of this substance. They are both capable of producing it.

British Minister for Foreign Affairs Boris Johnson summoned the Russian ambassador in London, Alexandre Iakovenko. He gave him an ultimatum of 36 hours to check if any « Novitchok » was missing from their stocks. The ambassador replied that none was missing, because Russia had destroyed all of the chemical weapons it had inherited from the Soviet Union, as witnessed by the OPCW, which had drawn up a certified report.

After a telephone discussion with Boris Johnson, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in turn condemned Russia for the attack in Salisbury.

Meanwhile, a debate was under way at the UN Security Council concerning the situation in the Ghouta. The permanent representative for the US, Nikki Haley, declared – « About one year ago, after the sarin gas attack perpetrated in Khan Cheïkhoun by the Syrian régime, the United States warned the Council. We said that faced with the systematic inaction of the international community, states are sometimes obliged to act on their own. The Security Council did not react, and the United States bombed the air base from which al Assad had launched his chemical attack. We are reiterating the same warning today ».

The Russian Intelligence Services handed out documents from the US staff. They showed that the Pentagon was ready to bomb the Presidential palace and the Syrian Ministries, on the model of what it had done during the taking of Baghdad (3 to 12 April 2003).

Commenting the declaration by Nikki Haley, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, who had always called the attack in Khan Cheïkhoun a « Western manipulation », revealed that the false information which had led the White House into error and triggered the bombing of the Al-Chaayrate air base, had in fact come from a British laboratory which had never revealed how it came to possess its samples.

13 March 2018

The Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs published a Press release condemning a possible US military intervention, and announcing that if Russian citizens were harmed in Damascus, Moscow would riposte proportionally, since the Russian President is constitutionally responsible for the security of his fellow citizens.

Bypassing the official diplomatic channels, Russian Chief of Staff General Valeri Guerassimov contacted his US counterpart General Joseph Dunford to inform him of his fear of a false flag chemical attack in Ghouta. Dunford took this information vey seriously, and alerted US Defense Secretary General Jim Mattis, who referred the matter to President Donald Trump. In view of the Russian insistence that this piece of foul play was being prepared without the knowledge of the Pentagon, the White House asked the Director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, to identify those responsible for the conspiracy. [...]

-- Peter Myers
website: http://mailstar.net/index.html