Protecting Information Space from Facebook's Tyranny

August 19, 2019 (Gunnar Ulson - NEO) - The recent attack aimed at New Eastern Outlook (NEO) and several of its authors once again exposes the infinite hypocrisy of US and European interests including across their media and among their supposed human rights advocates.

It also exposes the severe threat that exists to the national security of nations around the globe who lack control over platforms including social media used by their citizens to exchange information.

This lack of control over a nation's information space is quickly becoming as dangerous as being unable to control and protect a nation's physical space/territory.

Facebook's Tyranny  

NEO and at least one of its contributors had their Facebook and Twitter accounts deleted and were accused of "coordinated inauthentic behavior," according to Facebook's "newsroom."

Their statement reads:

In the past week, we removed multiple Pages, Groups and accounts that were involved in coordinated inauthentic behavior on Facebook and Instagram.

It also reads:

We removed 12 Facebook accounts and 10 Facebook Pages for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behavior that originated in Thailand and focused primarily on Thailand and the US. The people behind this small network used fake accounts to create fictitious personas and run Pages, increase engagement, disseminate content, and also to drive people to off-platform blogs posing as news outlets. They also frequently shared divisive narratives and comments on topics including Thai politics, geopolitical issues like US-China relations, protests in Hong Kong, and criticism of democracy activists in Thailand. Although the people behind this activity attempted to conceal their identities, our review found that some of this activity was linked to an individual based in Thailand associated with New Eastern Outlook, a Russian government-funded journal based in Moscow.

In this single statement, Facebook reveals about itself that it, and it alone, decides what is and isn't a "news outlet."

Apparently the blogs the deleted Facebook pages linked to were "not" news outlets, though no criteria was provided by Facebook nor any evidence presented that these links did not meet whatever criteria Facebook used.

While Facebook claims that it did not delete the accounts based on their content, they contradicted themselves by clearly referring to the content in their statement as "divisive narratives and comments" which clearly challenged narratives and comments established by Western media organizations.

The statement first accuses the pages of "coordinated inauthentic behavior," but then admits they were only able to link the pages to a single individual in Thailand. How does a single person "coordinate" with themselves? Again, Facebook doesn't explain.

Finally, Facebook reveals that any association at all with Russia is apparently grounds for deletion despite nothing of the sort being included in their terms of service nor any specific explanation of this apparent policy made in their statement. New Eastern Outlook is indeed a Russian journal.

Other governments, especially the United States, fund journals and media platforms not only in the United States, but around the globe. Facebook and Twitter, for example, have not deleted the accounts of the virtual army of such journals and platforms funded by the US government funded and directed via the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

NED-funded operations often operate well outside of the United States, while NEO is based in Russia's capital, Moscow. NED-funded operations often don't disclose their funding or affiliations.

Ironically, the accounts Facebook deleted in Thailand were proficient at exposing this funding to the public.

The bottom line here is that Facebook is a massive social media platform. It is also clearly very abusive, maintaining strict but arbitrary control over content on its networks, detached even from their own stated terms of service. It is a form of control that ultimately and clearly works in favor of special interests in Washington and against anyone Washington declares a villain.

Facebook would be bad enough as just a massive US social media platform, but the real problem arises considering its global reach.

Looking at Information Space as we do Physical Space 

A nation's information space is a lot like its physical space (or territory). The people of a nation operate in it, conduct commerce, exchange information, report news, and carry out a growing number of other economically, socially and politically important activities there. It is not entirely unlike a nation's physical space where people conduct these same sort of activities.

A nation's physical space would never be surrendered to a foreign government or corporation to control and decide who can and cannot use it and how it is used. But this is precisely what many nations around the globe have done regarding their information space.

Syria's Internet Outage & the Future of Information Warfare

December 1, 2012 (LD) - It's not that Syria's government didn't prepare for war. They perhaps, simply prepared for the wrong kind of war.

This week when sweeping outages in Syria's communication networks were reported, the Western media immediately accused the Syrian government of being behind the move. However, it should be noted that NATO-backed terrorists operating inside of Syria have been openly given advanced communication equipment (also here and here) by Western nations, including the United States, allowing militants to create their own, independent communication networks. This includes radio, satellite, and cell networks, as well as the under-reported existence of "suitcase Internets" (also here and here).

The reason a communications blackout in Syria would not effect NATO's primary proxy forces is because any node or bottleneck in Syria controlled by the government has already long since been circumvented, either through independent networks, or satellite links.

Image: New York Times depicts what is called a "mesh network," or an independent internet that uses computers and phones not only as interfaces, but as actual nodes to create the network Imagine in this case, that the "country border" is that of Turkey and Syria. Such networks can be set up virtually anywhere, and the development of methods and software to do so have been the subject of US State Department funding and implementation.

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The New York Times in their article, "U.S. Underwrites Internet Detour Around Censors," stated in June, 2011 that:

The Obama administration is leading a global effort to deploy “shadow” Internet and mobile phone systems that dissidents can use to undermine repressive governments that seek to silence them by censoring or shutting down telecommunications networks.

The effort includes secretive projects to create independent cellphone networks inside foreign countries, as well as one operation out of a spy novel in a fifth-floor shop on L Street in Washington, where a group of young entrepreneurs who look as if they could be in a garage band are fitting deceptively innocent-looking hardware into a prototype “Internet in a suitcase.”

Therefore, the Syrian government would gain very little by shutting off the Internet to neutralize networks working entirely independent of infrastructure within state control. Conversely, if NATO has shut the Internet off at nodes leading into Syria, as appears to be the case, NATO and their proxies operating inside of Syria can begin spreading false information, uncontested, via radio, SMS, and even ad hoc WiFi networks.

With NATO's proxies possessing their own communication networks, their own ability to co-opt and control signals in and near their areas of operation, in particular along the borders where NATO forces themselves are directly involved in disrupting and controlling communications, according to Reuters, a disruption in Syria's communication networks would only serve to blind, hinder, and disrupt the government and the vast majority of Syria's civilians. 

US-Backed Terrorists Mass Murder Unarmed Civilians in Syria

Washington Post claims "soldiers" were executed - terrorists in video clearly refer to victims as civilian "shabih." Victims had no weapons, uniforms, or IDs indicating they were soldiers. 

Tony Cartalucci
Land Destroyer
November 2, 2012

An egregious war crime was reported on by the Washington Post, but deceitfully and purposefully spun and shrugged off. In the Post's article, "Syrian rebels execute unarmed government soldiers; dozens killed in fighting," it is first reported:

Syrian rebels executed at least a half-dozen unarmed government soldiers Thursday after attacks on checkpoints near the town of Saraqeb in northwest Syria.

Then: 

The execution of the soldiers, which was documented in a graphic video [GRAPHIC] posted online Thursday, is not the first time that rebel fighters appear to have committed war crimes. U.N. representatives and human rights organizations have repeatedly criticized the Syrian opposition in recent months for carrying out summary executions and for abusing detainees.

The video clearly shows unarmed men, none of whom are wearing uniforms or equipment typical of "government soldiers." The Washington Post then links to another video while reporting:

A second video posted online Thursday [GRAPHIC], which appears to have been filmed shortly after the execution, shows at least three other bodies spread out around the checkpoint. The man filming approaches two of the bodies and says, “The shabiha of Assad, the dogs.” 

"Shabiha," of course refers to alleged civilian militias organized locally to resist terrorists entering into and attempting to overrun neighborhoods. The term "shabiha" has been used by the Western media as a catch-all to spin any massacre committed against civilians by US-backed terrorists operating in Syria. That the murderers themselves, filming their own crime, refer to the victims as "shabiha" - indicates that civilians, not Syrian government forces, were murdered - contrary to what the Washington Post reported.

The term suspected "shabiha" has become analogous of the Western media's use of the term "African mercenaries" in Libya during NATO destabilization and regime change operations there in 2011. These "African mercenaries" were lynched, beheaded, shot, burned, and hacked to pieces, just as terrorists are  now doing to suspected "shabiha" across Syria.
 

 
Photo: Images and reports eventually trickled out as NATO-backed genocide unfolded throughout Tripoli's streets, indicating the destruction of infrastructure and the specific targeting of black Libyans written off by the corporate media as "suspected mercenaries." Benghazi rebels have been long reported to harbor extremist ideologies and an intense ethnic and racial hatred. These very Libyan, Benghazi terrorists are now streaming into Syria to commit similar atrocities against the Syrian people.

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It would later turn out these black Africans were not mercenaries, but citizens who had lived in Libya for generations fighting desperately for their lives against sectarian extremists intolerant of their complexion and creed. Racially motivated attacks by NATO-backed terrorists in Libya would culminate in the extermination of the entire city of Tawarga where an estimated 10,000-35,000 inhabitants were either exterminated, imprisoned, or exiled to refugee camps and then beyond Libya's borders.

Video: Wiped out. Tawarga, once home to 10,000 (this video claims up to 35,000) people, many part of Libya's black community who had resided in the country for generations, had its inhabitants either exiled, imprisoned or exterminated. NATO-backed militants told the Telegraph in 2011, " every single one of them has left, and we will never allow them to come back." And just as the Western media initially covered up these atrocities by merely labeling all black victims of NATO terrorists as "African mercenaries," a similar propaganda campaign is underway in Syria, labeling civilian victims of NATO-backed foreign terrorists as suspected "shibiha." 

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In Syria, suspected "shabiha" are in actuality Syrians unwilling or unable, because of their ethnicity or creed, to capitulate to roving bands of foreign-armed sectarian extremists. The Washington Post and others throughout the corporate-driven Western media are willfully covering up crimes against humanity through overtly deceitful reporting and semantics.

It should be remembered, that these terrorists who have video taped themselves committing a massacre of unarmed men, out of uniform, and referred to as civilian "shabiha," not soldiers - are at the center of renewed US, NATO, Saudi and Qatari efforts to refocus Western support for the violent, armed overthrow of the Syrian government.

EU Censors Alternative News in Bid to Dominate Narrative

Western media quietly attempts to censor growing global opposition, begins with Iranian media. 
by Tony Cartalucci

October 16, 2012 - Iran's Press TV reported in their article, "Press TV viewers slam EU move to ban Iran channels as illegal, hypocritical," that "Press TV viewers have condemned as illegal and hypocritical the ban imposed by the European officials on the broadcast of several Iranian satellite channels." Nearly no mention is made in the Western media regarding the blatant act of censorship - an act that runs contra to all perceived notions of "Western values," and an act that directly undermines the narratives of the West supporting "freedom" and "democracy" around the globe.

Image: The West has spent billions trying to leverage "freedom of speech" and "human rights" as a means to undermine, destabilize, overthrow, and replace governments around the world, from the US-engineered Eastern European "color-revolutions" after the fall of the Soviet Union, to the latest US-engineered "Arab Spring," and all across Southeast Asia. Now with the West pursuing its own campaign of censorship, it is clear that these "values" were merely selectively and opportunistically manipulated.

....  

The news has been buried under reports regarding a new round of sanctions passed by the EU which was recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize even while pursuing multiple wars across the globe, including continuing operations in Libya, the subversion of Syria, and a decade long occupation of Afghanistan which sees weekly civilian massacres by NATO air strikes on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border. In fact, the most recent NATO atrocity occurred not even a week ago, killing 3 children in the Helmand province. Of course this was absent in Western headlines, but it did make headlines in Iran's Press TV, and indicates a more realistic explanation to the EU's decision to ban the Iranian news service. 


Clearly the EU has no qualms over endangering civilian lives - its concerns over "human rights" are a selectively applied value it uses against its enemies with demonstrably no intention of holding itself to similar standards. Now, the EU has applied this same selective application of supposed "Western values" to "freedom of speech," curtailing it when that speech endangers its own interests, and pursuing "freedom" when it advances their agenda. And it is this hypocrisy that the increasingly popular Press TV news service has been illustrating, as a counterweight to the uniformly biased and compromised Western press.

It was US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who stated that censorship incurred "long-term economic and social costs," with oppression leading to "civil unrest and not security." Many Western politicians executing corporate-financier driven policy have stated that a regime's pursuit of censorship was a sign of weakness and fear - an indicator that its opposition was gaining ground and that more overt, visible, even desperate measures needed to be implemented. Censorship, according to the West's own narrative, is part of a self-defeating cycle where legitimacy and the mandate to lead increasingly is fading.

With that consideration in mind, the censorship of Iran's Press TV should be a sign that Iran's efforts to balance global public perception skewed by the vast resources of Wall Street and London are succeeding. Along with Russia Today (RT), Press TV has provided nations who aspire to live in a mulipolar world where the primacy of the nation-state prevails, a model to follow in combating the unwarranted power and influence of Western media houses.

Above all, it should be noted that a key contributing factor to Press TV and RT's success is the growing alternative media - media by the people and for the people - whose legitimacy and reputation is measured in accuracy, consistency, and objectivity, not slick graphics, expensive suits, and million-dollar studios. The alternative media has provided content for growing national news agencies seeking to challenge the West's hegemony over information, and while national news agencies ultimately pursue national agendas, the content they are drawing on generally come from people simply seeking the truth.

The EU's act of censorship against Press TV is in turn a strike against the alternative media. Instead of being seen as a setback, it should be seen as a success and a signal to redouble our efforts as individuals to assert our own will and vision for the future over that of the miniscule global elite who have so far gone unchallenged in their designs and aspirations. The alternative media should be only the first in a series of people-driven alternatives systematically undermining and replacing existing corporate-financier dominated paradigms.

Cargill and Others Behind anti-Organic "Stanford Study"

Anti-organic "study" is not news, rather, coordinated propaganda campaign.
by Tony Cartalucci
 
September 5, 2012 - Harry Wallop of the London Telegraph ends his anti-organic food editorial with the following sentence:

"Tomorrow, the baby is going to get an extra dollop of pesticide-sprayed carrots."

Whether or not Wallop is as brain-addled as he leads on to being, the point of his editorial is to encourage similar attitudes amongst the Telegraph's readership, attempting to manipulate public perception in the wake of a recent Stanford University "study" regarding organic food.

Image: Conflict of interest? Strange that Stanford University is partnered with agricultural giant Cargill and just so happens to come out with a study that suggests organic food is no better than its big-agri competition. According to Stanford University, Cargill has donated at least 5 million dollars  for the creation of a Center on Food Security and the Environment (FSE). Cargill's website has a page describing its partnership with Stanford which can be found here. Cargill and many others also are listed as donors by Standford University in their 2011 Annual Report (page 38, .pdf).

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Whether or not readers of the Telegraph will put their own health and that of their children at risk for the sake of protecting big-agri's bottom line and the faltering paradigm that big-agri products are safe for human consumption simply because Harry Wallop thinks its good to feed his baby with pesticide-sprayed carrots remains to be seen.

The London Telegraph, when not fabricating news to support England's latest imperial adventures overseas, is at the forefront of many of the largest corporate-financier funded lobbying campaigns. Recently, someone has splurged, and splurged big on anti-organic food lobbying built atop a suspect Stanford study. 

A Flawed "Study"

When entire news cycles are dominated by headlines built on a single university study, with editorials attempting to hammer in big-agri talking points, a lobbying effort is clearly afoot. 

Two news cycles have already been dedicated to trashing organic food. Organic food is free of pesticides and genetic manipulation, both of which are proven to cause learning disabilities, decreased IQ, sterility, and a myriad of other health problems including a wide variety of cancers.

This most recent anti-organic food campaign began with a Stanford study (and here) out of its Center for Health Policy (a subsidiary of Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies), examining the nutritional value of organic food versus non-organic. Food with pesticides on it had nearly the same nutritional value, the study claims, as organic food - completely skipping over the whole point of eating organic.

Indeed, the nutritional value would be similar - but the entire point of eating organic is not because of vastly superior nutritional value, but to avoid the "extras" included with products from big-agri corporations.

The Stanford study intentionally dismisses concerns regarding the presence of pesticides by simply claiming levels were within legal tolerances. No discussion was made on whether legal tolerances equated to safe tolerances, nor was there any mention made of the harmful effects of genetically modified organisms (GMO) or other controversial food additives found in non-organic food products.

So why the strawman argument?

A Corporate-funded "Study"

The Stanford Center for Health Policy states the following  on its own website:

"The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) relies on support from its friends, as well as from national and international foundations and corporations, for the funding of the Institute's research, teaching and outreach activities."

The Center for Health Policy is a subsidiary of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). So who are these "friends," national and international foundations and corporations funding the research of FSI and its subsidiary, the Stanford Center for Health Policy?

Image: From Stanford Center for Health Policy's own website it is admitted that " national and international foundations and corporations" fund its research and "outreach activities." This confirms the suspicions of an increasingly aware public who saw the "study" as biased, contradictory of both logic and ethics, and the result of insidious corporate-funding. 

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According to FSI's 2011 Annual Report (page 38, .pdf) Agricultural giant Cargill, British Petroleum (BP), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (heavily invested in both Cargill and big-agri giant Monsanto), the Ford Foundation, Google, Goldman Sachs, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and many other corporate-financier, Fortune 500 special interests.

Image: From Stanford's 2011 FSI Annual Report (page 38, .pdf), of which the Center for Health Policy is a subsidiary, is funded by Cargill, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (heavily invested in both Cargill and big-agri giant Monsanto), and a myriad of other Fortune 500 corporate-financier special interests. The report at face value is throwaway propaganda, but its funding reveals a more insidious, coordinated effort to manipulate public perception, stretching across academia, mass media, government, and big business. (click image to enlarge)

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That none of this is mentioned, and the lack of independence and transparency involved in the study and its presentation to the public, overturns the credibility of both Stanford, and the Western media machine that so eagerly shoveled the results out to the public. Combined with the fact that the study itself is flawed, and the concerted, disingenuous nature with which it is being promoted to the public, a premeditated public relations campaign, bought and paid for by Stanford's FSI sponsors, most notably Cargill and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is self-evident.

What to Do?

Quite obviously, one should continue eating organic. Additionally, the duplicitous nature exhibited by academia, the mass media, and the vast corporate interests overtly driving them both, demands from us to redouble our efforts at implementing full-spectrum boycotts aimed at big-agri as well as other Fortune 500 corporate-financier monopolies. This includes other processed food makers such as Pepsi and Coca-Cola, Kraft, and the myriad of subsidiaries they maintain.

We should also redouble our efforts at supporting local farmers, attending and contributing to local farmers markets, and investigating the possibility of growing, if only a small percentage, our own herbs, fruits, and vegetables.

Freedom and self-determination come from economic independence, self-reliance, and self-sufficiency. The most fundamental form of economic independence is having a safe, secure, and local food supply operated for, by, and of the people. Cementing this emerging paradigm, in spite of the crass, juvenile, even criminally irresponsible editorials like that of the Telegraph's Harry Wallop, and multimillion dollar "studies" subsidized by Cargill and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is the first step on extending this paradigm shift to other areas required for maintaining and advancing modern civilization.

How to Reply to a BBC World Service Request

Boycott & disassociate yourself from them - their legitimacy and prominence is granted to, and capable of being stripped by, we the people. 
by Tony Cartalucci

August 8, 2012 - I recently received an email from someone claiming to be Abla Kandalaft from the BBC World Service. This is the same organization that recently received cash from the US State Department (and here) to help undermine the sovereign governments of nations around the world including Iran and China.  

I find it difficult to believe the "Abla" who contacted me is a journalist of any sort - as surely they'd have read my take on the BBC in general and realized beforehand the response they'd get from attempting to contact me. My most recent take on the BBC's coverage can be found in, "BBC Rides with Al Qaeda in Aleppo, Syria," and begins with the sentence, "When big lies must be told, BBC is there."

This organization is guilty of egregious crimes against humanity, crimes against world peace, and is complicit in facilitating and covering up a multitude of atrocities around the world. They, and organizations like them, are one of the single biggest obstructions to real progress - as an informed citizenry is required to implement progress and BBC's singular task is to breed ignorance and misdirection on behalf of special interests instead.

While many would jump at the chance to collaborate with the BBC in any capacity, in reality, their hold on the public's attention can only be broken if we are resolved to expose, boycott, disassociated ourselves from, and eventually replace them, as is the case with all corporate-financier backed monopolies.

The following is the exchange that took place.

....

Dear Tony,
 

My name is Abla Kandalaft. I am a journalist at the World Service and have read your piece about the Pussy Riot trial being appropriated by the US for political destabilisation. Would you be able to tell me if you know of a Russian person or group that would also back this argument?
 

Basically we're doing a report for the programme World Have your Say on their arrest and we want a number of points of view on this.

Personally I think it is quite interesting as similar things indeed have happened in Syria.
 

Thank you for your help

Best regards

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Abla,
 

My sincere apologies, but the BBC is not in any way a journalistic organization, nor are any of its affiliates. I have not the will, time, nor patience to associate with anyone even remotely involved in their regressive misanthropic agenda.

Please do not contact me again.

Very Seriously,

Tony Cartalucci 

 ....

Kandalaft would disregard my request to not be contacted again, and claimed that she "agreed" with me on my take on things. However, anyone familiar with the BBC and the Western press in general, realizes that once you send your thoughts or comments to these propaganda outfits, they are edited to undermine both one's credibility and one's message. Again, the best approach is to ignore them, boycott them, and eventually, entirely replace them with viable, honest alternatives. 

 ....

 To read the article referred to in the email, please see "Who or What is Russia's "Pussy Riot?""

Massacres in Aleppo, Syria

"Responsibility to Protect" crumbles as Western-armed terror front slaughters civilians while foreign sponsors attempt to tie hands of Syrian security forces. 
by Tony Cartalucci 

August 4, 2012 - For the people of Aleppo, their only hope is Syria's security forces restoring order. In the pockets of Syria's largest city the so-called "Free Syrian Army" (FSA) has dug into, a campaign of systematic detention, torture, and mass murder has been carried out against "enemies of the revolution." Demonized as either "Shabiha" or "government supporters," men have been rounded up, lined up against walls, and gunned down en mass. Others await barbaric "drumhead trials" where FSA warlords deal out arbitrary justice under the guise of "Sharia law."




Image: The Western media is covering - or more accurately, "spinning" - an unfolding sectarian genocide in Syria's largest city Aleppo. In the alleys of seized streets, FSA terrorists are detaining, torturing, and killing anyone suspected of supporting the government. Such suspicions coincidentally run along sectarian divisions. By using the label "Shabiha" for all of FSA's victims, the Western press has given a carte blanche to genocidal sectarian extremists and by doing so, has become complicit in war crimes themselves.

...

Worst of all, all of this is being reported by the Western media, but carefully downplayed, excused, spun, and otherwise sneaked through news cycles and headlines.

Reuters presented just such a report titled, "Rebels fill Aleppo power vacuum, some disapprove." Judging from the title, one might assume residents in the "liberated" alleys of select Aleppo neighborhoods are simply dissatisfied with late garbage collection and perhaps broken street lights. The title is far from the blood curdling hysteria accompanying Western accounts (and fabrications) of Syrian security operations over the last year and a half.

However, what Reuters actually reports is indeed growing basement-dungeons full of "suspected Shabiha," clear evidence of torture and abuse, as well as a growing number of summary executions and mass murder carried out before cameras and Western media in the streets.

The London Guardian likewise spins and downplays what are overt, ghoulish atrocities committed right on camera for the entire world to see. Russia Today covered one such massacre providing a graphic video depicting several bloodied men lined up against a wall and machine gunned to death, their bodies left in a tattered pile by FSA terrorists. RT leaves no doubt in the reader's mind that what they just witnessed was a war crime.

The Guardian however, begins downplaying the brutal massacre with the headline, "Syria crisis: rebels 'execute shabiha' in Aleppo." Already Guardian plays a role in shaping the potential reader's perception, convicting the massacred victims as "Shabiha." Scrolling down through a list of unverified accusations leveled against the Syrian government, one finds not an objective journalistic report of the massacre, but the justification provided by the FSA themselves, in a quote by Guardian's FSA "contact" that includes the somber warning:

"Regarding the video of the shabiha killed by the FSA, as far as I know these shabiha are from the "Berri" clan in Aleppo. They have a long history of being pro-regime shabiha and they have been involved in a lot of killing in Aleppo.

The regime used to provide them with light weapons and knives and gather them in schools to go and launch their attacks against civilians. Just before they left one of the schools they were caught by the FSA and killed.

In this war in which we left alone to fight such a vicious regime, everything is possible and legitimate and as long as the international community keeps looking at Syria in such carelessness, you will see more of that and even worse."

The Guardian not only excuses what was a massacre of civilians, but sows the ground for excusing war crimes that eclipse even this episode of barbarism. Unfortunately, the Guardian is not alone - this is a pattern that repeats itself throughout the Western media and signifies that as the military campaign winds down, the terror campaign is just beginning. US special interests' promise to "bleed" Syria is manifesting itself before our eyes.

The FSA's claims of everyone they round up, torture, and execute being "Shabiha" carry with them the familiar and horrifying ring of the term "African mercenaries" used to label black Libyans who were targeted by NATO-armed racist sectarian extremists also posing as "revolutionaries." In the end, entire cities were emptied out of blacks (and here) who had for generations called Libya home. Refugee camps were then systematically targeted until Libya's blacks were either dead, imprisoned or exiled beyond their homeland's borders as part of a brutal genocidal campaign covered up by the Western media and downplayed by the West's self-appointed global arbiters of human rights, namely Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

While the West still to this day claims Libya's blacks were "pro-Qaddafi," Libya's blacks had no choice but to fight NATO's terrorists of Benghazi, as their complexions and creeds, not political affiliations, had marked them as intolerable and undesirable by NATO's "liberators." 

Likewise, a similar campaign of sectarian driven genocide, predicted for years should the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia and others unleash Al Qaeda aligned death squads across the Levant to destabilize their geopolitical enemies, is unfolding, due in part to the complicity of the Western media.

Image: Christians in Syria have been particularly hit hard by what is being described as "ethnic cleansing," not by Syrian security forces, but by NATO-backed death squads under the banner of the "Free Syrian Army." The LA Times has been quietly reporting on the tragedy of Syria's minorities at the hands of the Syrian rebels for months - and indicates that wider genocide will take place, just as it is now in Libya, should Syria's government collapse under foreign pressure. 

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In 2007, in Hersh's "The Redirection," the following foreshadowing to the NATO and FSA's unfolding genocidal rampage was given:

"Robert Baer, a former longtime C.I.A. agent in Lebanon, has been a severe critic of Hezbollah and has warned of its links to Iranian-sponsored terrorism. But now, he told me, “we’ve got Sunni Arabs preparing for cataclysmic conflict, and we will need somebody to protect the Christians in Lebanon. It used to be the French and the United States who would do it, and now it’s going to be Nasrallah and the Shiites" -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh (2007)

Now, demonstrably, we see exactly this feared onslaught manifesting itself in Syria, in particular against Christians as indicated in LA Times' "Church fears 'ethnic cleansing' of Christians in Homs, Syria," and more recently in USA Today's distorted, but still telling, "Christians in Syria live in uneasy alliance with Assad, Alawites." Even the massacre in Houla, seems to echo of this 2007 warning, bearing all the hallmarks of sectarian extremists like Al Qaeda.

With the Western press freely admitting that their "freedom fighting" FSA is lining up "suspected government supporters" and machine gunning them en mass, it seems the massacre the West feared would unfold in Aleppo has come to pass - only it wasn't perpetrated by the Syrian government or its security forces, but rather by NATO and the Gulf State's very own armed and coddled FSA terrorists.

As the West's machinations implode upon themselves and shareholders begin hedging their bets and distancing themselves from possible culpability for egregious crimes against humanity, we must hope that global opposition reaches a critical mass, forcing the West to stand down and allowing the Syrian government to restore order across their nation-state. Until then, we as individuals must identify, boycott, and replace the corporate-financier interests driving this insidious conspiracy against humanity. While swatting mosquitoes seems to be the most immediate remedy at hand, draining the swamp from within which they flourish is the only way to solve this problem permanently.

Syrian Rebels Set Trap for British Journalists

Alex Thomson narrowly escapes attempt to kill his Channel 4 team, "clear the rebels deliberately set us up to be shot by the Syrian Army." 
by Tony Cartalucci

June 9, 2012 - While the New York Times publishes Goebbels-esque war propaganda pieces titled, "Assad, the Butcher," presuming to know the details about an unconfirmed "massacre" the UN is just now in the beginning stages of investigating - a disturbing and very telling incident unfolded that is very much confirmed. British Channel 4's Alex Thomson, one of the few Western journalists not only in Syria legally, but attempting to cover both sides of the conflict, was purposefully led by rebels into a trap designed to have him and his team killed by government troops.

Image: UK's Channel 4 News' Alex Thomson narrowly escaped a trap set for him and his team in Syria, by rebels hoping to use his death as propaganda. Ironically, it would have been Thomson's own countrymen and colleagues, particularly BBC, who would have maximized the effect of the rebels' insidious plot had they succeeded. Killing journalists and carrying out manufactured atrocities, then blaming it on a targeted government is a pastime for Western media houses.

 ....

"Set up to be shot in Syria's no man's land?" featured on Thomson's personal Channel 4 blog describes a tale of violence on both sides - very uncharacteristic of Western and particularly British media coverage. While BBC was busy posting fake pictures for their one-sided Houla Massacre coverage, Thomson was busy trying to interview belligerents on both sides of the Syrian conflict.

Thomson's narrative describes what appears to be a bifurcation between "rebel" forces. On one hand, there are organized fighters that appear to be solely committed to fighting the Syrian Army. On the other hand, there appears to be a more insidious "third party" involved, a third party implicated by Thomson as having intentionally led him and his team into a deadly trap. This is a narrative that corroborates statements made by the Syrian government itself, as well as independent geopolitical analysts from around the world - that there exists a substantiation third party, consisting of foreign mercenaries and sectarian extremists carrying out the bulk of the violence and atrocities.

Thomson describes his ordeal after accompanying UN monitors out to "Free Syrian Army" held territory:

"We decide to ask for an escort out the safe way we came in. Both sides, both checkpoints will remember our vehicle.

Suddenly four men in a black car beckon us to follow. We move out behind.

We are led another route. Led in fact, straight into a free-fire zone. Told by the Free Syrian Army to follow a road that was blocked off in the middle of no-man’s-land.

At that point there was the crack of a bullet and one of the slower three-point turns I’ve experienced. We screamed off into the nearest side-street for cover.
Another dead-end.

There was no option but to drive back out onto the sniping ground and floor it back to the road we’d been led in on.

Predictably the black car was there which had led us to the trap. They roared off as soon as we re-appeared."

I’m quite clear the rebels deliberately set us up to be shot by the Syrian Army. Dead journos are bad for Damascus."

Alex Thomson concluded his account by saying, "in a war where they slit the throats of toddlers back to the spine, what's the big deal in sending a van full of journalists into the killing zone? It was nothing personal."

The obvious question that comes to mind upon reading Thomson's account, along with emerging evidence that the Western press willfully lied about the Houla Massacre and is attempting to do so again regarding killings in Hama, is that "if rebels are willing to try and kill foreign journalists for propaganda value - men and women merely trying to do their job, to share with the world the truth about unfolding events in Syria - just to blame the deaths on the Syrian government, why wouldn't they kill men, women and children to blame on the Syrian government as well?"

Another pertinent question would be, "what if the rebels had succeeded in their insidious plan to have Thomson and his team killed? Would the Western press commit themselves to due diligence in ascertaining the truth surrounding the circumstances of their deaths? Or would headlines read, "BRITISH JOURNALISTS SLAUGHTERED BY ASSAD!"

It is above all ironic, that the West's insidious leadership who long planned Syria's division, destruction, and downfall, and the Western media that serves this agenda, are able to invoke so much genuine sympathy and concern for human life in people around the world, when they themselves lack any at all.
 

Warning: World Net Daily (WND) Posting CIA DoD Propaganda

Relentless Neo-Con propaganda originating from "conservative" news agency.
by Tony Cartalucci

June 5, 2012 - "Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for a former CIA operative in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and author of the award-winning book, “A Time to Betray.” He is a senior fellow with EMPact America and teaches at the U.S. Department of Defense’s Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy." This is the biography following a series of articles featured on World Net Daily (WND) which targets Iran with the disingenuous Neo-Conservative narrative that it is a dangerous theocratic nation seeking global hegemony.

Video: An except from the cartoonish Neo-Con war propaganda film, "Iranium." Here we have WND contributor, and CIA agent "Reza Kahlili" inadvertently explaining to us why we should never believe a word he says.

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Kahili's articles include, "Iran: Our nukes proof of Islamic power," and "Iran: Discovery will collapse Christianity," all designed to instill fear across well-intentioned, but susceptible conservative readers who may be unaware that the very propagandists behind these tall tales have conspired for years against Iran, admitting in their own think-tank documents, like Brookings Institution's "Which Path to Persia?" that Iran poses no threat to the world, but only to Western hegemonic aspirations throughout the Middle East.

In fact, it is these very people who are on record, supporting listed terrorist organizations with the blood of Americans on their hands - organizations like Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK).

One must wonder why WND would publish such propaganda, by a source who is so overtly compromised. It turns out that WND's Editor-in-Chief, Chairman and CEO Joseph Farah is listed as an "International Adviser" of the Neo-Conservative "US Committee for a Free Lebanon," along side Ziad K. Abdelnour, covered here in ""Might Makes Right" Says Conspirator of Syrian-Iranian Conquest," Morris Amitay of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) - Olivier Guitta, Clifford May, and Michael Ledeen of the warmongering Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) - Project for a New American Century (PNAC) signatories Paula Dobriansky, Frank Gaffney, Daniel Pipes, and James Woolsey - James Phillips of the corporate-funded Heritage Foundation - and corporate-financier funded American Enterprise Institute (AEI) "scholars" Michael Rubin and Daenielle Pletka.


Images: Some of the corporate sponsors that fund the Heritage Foundation and AEI. They have been the primary, if not the only beneficiaries of the last 10 years of the unending "War on Terror." They will be the only ones who benefit from continuing to warmonger against Iran. 

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These represent the premier warmongers who have led America through over a decade of disastrous, costly, conflicts as part of the fraudulent "War on Terror." Most recently, these are the same people who supported NATO intervention in Libya which has resulted in handing the country over to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) who now are carrying out a nationwide campaign of sectarian-driven genocide, while exporting weapons, cash, and fighters as far west as Mali, and as far east as Syria. These are also the same policy makers driving toward intervention in Syria - and are in fact, the very architects of the bloodbath now unfolding there at the hands of sectarian extremists.

WND poses as a combination of alternative and conservative news but its overall editorial tone is one of Neo-Conservativism, warmongering, fear-mongering, and the perpetuation of a singular agenda driven by the very people WND Editor-in-Chief, Chairman and CEO Joseph Farah is listed amongst on the "US Committee for a Free Lebanon," which in and of itself is nothing more than PNAC, FDD, AEI, Heritage Foundation, and Foreign Policy Initiative's membership roster rewritten once again, with yet another agenda to sell.

Readers should be aware of this overt conflict of interest at WND, the attempt, wittingly or unwittingly to perpetuate the false left-right paradigm, and of duplicitous, self-discrediting authors, like Neo-Con cartoon character "Reza Kahlili" who haunt its pages. If readers believe WND's direction is one of well-intentioned but misguided principles, they should contact the editorial staff with their concerns.  

West's Syrian Narrative Based on "Guy in British Apartment"

Opposition propagandist in England apartment is, and has been, the sole source cited by the Western press. 
by Tony Cartalucci 

June 4, 2012 - The "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights" has been cited by the Western media for over a year in nearly every report, regardless of which news agency, be it AFP, AP, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, BBC, or any of the largest Western newspapers. One would believe this to be a giant sprawling organization with hundreds of members working hard on the ground, documenting evidence in Syria with photographs and video, while coordinating with foreign press to transparently and objectively "observe" the "human rights" conditions in Syria, as well as demonstrate their methodologies. Surely that is the impression the Western media attempts to relay to its readers.

However, astoundingly, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is none of these things. Instead, it is merely a single man, sitting behind a computer in a British apartment, who alleges he receives "phone calls" with information always incriminating the Syrian government, and ever glorifying the "Free Syrian Army." In fact, Reuters even admitted this in their article, "Coventry - an unlikely home to prominent Syria activist," and even concedes that this man, "Rami Abdulrahman," is openly part of the Syrian opposition who seeks the end of the Syrian government. Abdulrahman admits that he had left Syria over 10 years ago, has lived in Britain ever since, and will not return until "al-Assad goes." 

Of course, beyond this single article, Reuters and its fellow news agencies are sure to never again remind readers of these facts.  

The opportunity for impropriety seems almost inevitable for a man who openly reviles a government long targeted for "regime change" by the very country he currently resides in, and who's method of reportage involves dubious phone-calls impossible for anyone to verify. When Abdulrahman isn't receiving mystery phone calls from fellow opposition members in Syria (like "Syrian Danny") or passing on his less-than-reputable information to the Western press, he is slinking in and out of the British Foreign Office to meet directly with Foreign Secretary William Hague - who also openly seeks the removal of Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad.  



Photo: From Reuters: "Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, leaves the Foreign and Commonwealth Office after meeting Britain's Foreign Secretary, William Hague, in central London November 21, 2011. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor" Abdelrahman is not the "head" of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, he is the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, run out of his British apartment as a one-man operation. 

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Clearly for real journalists, Abdulrahman is a useless, utterly compromised source of information who has every reason to twist reality to suit his admittedly politically-motivated agenda of overthrowing the Syrian government. However, for a propagandist, he is a goldmine. That is why despite the overt conflict of interests, the lack of credibility, the obvious disadvantage of being nearly 3,000 miles away from the alleged subject of his "observations," or the fact that a single man is ludicrously calling himself a "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights" in the first place, the Western media still eagerly laps up his constant torrent of disinformation.


And when the Western press cites such a dubious, compromised character, it means that the actual evidence inevitably trickling out of Syria contradicts entirely the West's desired narrative, so profoundly in fact, that they must contrive the summation of their "evidence" from whole cloth with "tailors" like Abdelrahman. And while the general public should indeed be angry over being deceived on such a vast scale, they should be utterly outraged that the establishment thinks they are so stupid - they'd believe any evidence coming from an opposition activist, disingenuously masquerading as a reputable organization, telling us all what is happening in Syria via "phone-calls" received in his plush apartment in England.

West Desperately Attempts to Spin Syrian Crisis

Latest fabrications includes defected "air force officer" with "super human" hearing and sight, and miraculous satellite imaging. 
by Tony Cartalucci 

June 2, 2012 - The Guardian claims in their report, "I saw massacre of children, says defecting Syrian air force officer," that long bearded men with shaved heads were observed by an alleged "air force officer" from inside his house some 300 meters away, storming the village of Houla, Syria screaming, "Shabiha forever, for your eyes, Assad." The Guardian claims this tenuous narrative constitutes, "crucial evidence on the Houla killings."

Image: "A lot of them were bald and many had beards. Many wore white sports shoes and army pants," said Guardian's "defected officer." An apt description of the NATO-armed sectarian terrorists that ravaged Libya before traveling to Syria (here, here, and here) to continue their campaign of extremist-driven genocide. Of course, Guardian's "officer" claims he heard, from 300 meters away, inside his house, the militants crying the conveniently incriminating, "Shabiha forever, for your eyes, Assad." (click image to enlarge)

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The officer claims he saw militants riding in "cars and army trucks and on motorbikes," which contradicts another star witness the Guardian has produced, little 11 year old "Ali" who maintains that militants dismounted from tanks and armored transports to carry out their dark deeds. The Guardian reported, ""they came in armoured vehicles and there were some tanks," said the boy."

This discrepancy is never explained. The officer's identity is never confirmed by the Guardian, nor his story, nor the identity of the bearded men, whose descriptions appear to better fit the foreign sectarian extremists seen in Libya and who are known now to be operating in Syria in large numbers (and here), than pro-government militias. Additionally, the Guardian fails to explain how, from 300 meters inside his home, the "officer" was able to discern the identity of the men, what they were doing, or hear what they were saying.

How far is 300 meters?

300 meters (approximately 328 yards) is beyond the range of both a human's ability to discern what a human voice is saying, as well as beyond the ability for human eyes to positively identify strangers as belonging to one group of militants or another. It is over 3 football fields away- and anyone who has been in the "cheap-seats" at a sporting event knows, in much less than that distance it is still very difficult to tell what is going on, let alone claim to hear what people are saying. According to Guardian's "defected officer," he was able to discern the unfolding events from 3 times that distance, with artillery and assault rifles firing, no less.

  
Image: How far is 300 meters? Over three times this. Yet Guardian's "officer" claims to have seen the entire Houla Massacre being carried out by pro-government militias, including hearing them shout who they were, from 300 meters away, inside his house. 

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And for this "officer" to claim he saw the entire massacre, from 300 meters away, inside his house, contradicts yet another recent fabrication that has come out of the Western press, one involving satellite imagery allegedly taken at Houla, Syria.

Magic Eye in the Sky 

In the BBC's "Satellite image clues to Houla massacre in Syria," alleged satellite imagery taken from the scene of the massacres is said to show the two sites of the attacks as well as "reported" positions of pro-government militias and "suspected" locations of Syrian artillery positions. The article claims there were two separate attacks, over 500 meters apart from each other. Surely then, Guardian's defected "officer" only saw one of these attacks at best - that is, if the "officer" even exists.

The BBC reported in their article that, "satellite images obtained by the BBC show clearly the location of Syrian military forces around the site of last week's massacre at Houla where 108 civilians died, including 49 children." This attempts to lead readers into believing the images were taken during the massacre. However, the images are taken a day after the attack, when UN monitors were already on scene, and who were already well aware of the positions of Syrian troops at that time. Not only that, but the monitors were in a  better position to discern conditions on the ground than BBC's "eye in the sky."

Of course, the images could not have been taken "during the massacre," and BBC even dates the images as being taken the day after. This is because imagery satellites are constantly moving in relation to the surface of the Earth and only "revisit" any particular location between 1-3 days - sometimes even longer. BBC's analysis comes from a paid consulting firm called "McKenzie Intelligence Services," that was presumably hired by the BBC to access an imaging satellite, and had to settle for the most recent "fly over" of Houla, Syria.

And because of this fact, any imagery before or after the events would be completely irrelevant as both artillery and militia positions could have moved half way across the country between windows when a satellite would be overhead. Additionally, these satellite images are stills, not video, so it would be impossible to determine from which direction the militants who carried out the attacks came from even if BBC's satellite miraculously found itself directly overhead as the massacres unfolded.

Image: From BBC's article, the images show absolutely nothing of tactical importance, with labels proceeded by classic weasel words like "reported" and "suspected." The propaganda piece attempts to overwhelm readers with techno-babble as well as exploit their ignorance as to how an imaging satellite actually works, when the image itself is taken a day after the attacks, when UN monitors were already on the ground and well aware of the locations of Syrian troops. 

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Both the Guardian and the BBC depend entirely on the logical fallacy of appealing to authority - be it an allegedly qualified witness, or satellite imagery and overwhelming techno-babble. Both news agencies have demonstrably failed to provide any actual evidence to back the narrative they have been irresponsibly reporting since Houla erupted into violence last week.

The narrative has shifted from the Syrian army shelling civilians to death, to soldiers dismounting from tanks and killing civilians at close range, to pro-government militias dismounting from tanks and killing civilians at close range, and now finally, militants in cars, trucks, and on motorbikes killing civilians at close range - which seems to corroborate the Syrian government's own conclusion, that it was terrorists.

The BBC has already been caught outright misrepresenting events in Houla, when they used a picture of dead bodies taken years ago from Iraq in their recent Syrian coverage.

A witness account is only as good as the actual evidence supporting it. The Guardian has failed utterly to provide even a tenable witness account, saying nothing of the lack of evidence to support it. BBC's "satellite images" are simply Google Earth images with BBC staff writing over them, for an article that likewise creates a narrative floating freely of any solid factual basis. And the lies will continue to be told until people begin tuning them out and turning to alternative media - or better still, doing the research themselves and exposing the lies faster than the corporate-media can tell them.

BBC Deceitfully Posts Images from Iraq in Syria Massacre Report!

Houla horror: truth is elusive, lies are easier to spot.

Syd Walker
SydWalker.info
May 27, 2012

Editor's Note: Land Destroyer has independently confirmed this by searching and finding other news outlets that posted the original BBC story here and here. 

Update: May 28, 2012 - The London Telegraph has now confirmed, indeed BBC did use a photo of an Iraq massacre for their Houla, Syria coverage. The Telegraph quoted the photographer who took the original photo, Marco di Lauro, as saying, "someone is using someone else picture for propaganda on purpose."

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Over the last 24-hours there’s been a renewed media storm over Syria – prompted by a horrific story of atrocities in the town of Houla. Very gruesome images of dead children have been offered to the media, which has lapped them up and used them again and again on our screens and in our newspapers.
The UN observers in Syria, so far, have declined to draw definite conclusions about who’s responsible for this terrible massacre. But unsurprisingly, western media has been less circumspect. There’s a deafening chorus of howls complaining ‘The World’ isn’t doing anything, while President Assad gets away with murdering his own people – again!

Image: Before and after BBC's reckless/deceitful journalism. (click image to enlarge) Notice how the image on the left is "unverified" like most of what the Western media reports regarding Syria, and that this photo was supplied by "activists" who have been revealed as serial liars (see here & here). Visit Syd Walker's blog to see the original screen grabs.

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I’ve no doubt some of the Twitter users tweeting and re-tweeting this type of sentiment on the #Houla hashtag are genuine in their concern. Yet remarkably few people ever seem to pause and ask themselves the obvious question – why on earth would the Syrian Government want to kill Syrian children? And even if for some reason they did – why would they do so in a way more or less guaranteed to attract international condemnation and renewed calls for intervention?

In other words, ‘cui bono‘?

Who really benefits from this atrocity – and who doesn’t? Surely the insurgents and their foreign backers benefit.. and the Syrian Government most certainly does not! Given that recent bomb atrocities in Damascus have been blamed – almost universally – on extremist opponents of the Assad Government, isn’t it at least plausible they’re also behind this latest horror?

Yet just as mainstream media doesn’t want to give that line of inquiry much encouragement, major ‘human rights’ NGOs like Amnesty have also rushed to judgement. Their weekend tweeps have been hammering away, sneering at the Assad Government and spinning the incident as grounds for outside “intervention”… just like they did last year over Libya.

Every now again again the mass media is so dishonest it gets caught out. The BBC came a cropper only a few hours ago – but there’s been no acknowledgement and I suspect BBC staff would like their ‘mistake’ flushed rapidly down the Memory Hole.

To make it a tad harder for them, this post tells the story for posterity. The information on which it’s based comes from a pro-Syrian tweeter called Hey Joud, whom I’ve found to be well informed and savvy.
A few hours ago the BBC posted a story on its website (Middle East section) entitled Syria massacre in Houla condemned as outrage grows. The latest update is given as 04.40 GMT. It has some rather unremarkable graphics – a photo of a UN observer witnessing bodies in sheets and a map showing the location of Houla, near Homs.

However, a friend of Joud’s was smart enough to take a screenshot of an earlier version of this story. Then he/she did some homework – and discovered the dramatic image which it featured prominently was in fact a photo from Iraq dating from several years ago (according to the associated image data, May 2003). It’s featured as image no 52 on this webpage. The accompanying text makes it clear the bodies had been removed from a mass grave.

Hey Joud tweeted about this discovery. That’s how I became aware of it:

@BBCWorld propaganda:http://imageshack.us/photo/my-image … showing a pic of bodies from Iraq claiming it’s the?#HoulaMassacre? ?#Syria? http://shineyourlight-shineyourlight.blogspot.ca/2012/01/9-nike-years-of-war-in-iraq.htmleyourlight-shineyourlight.blogspot.ca/2012/01/9-nike… …

By the time I went to check the same BBC’s story online for myself, the photo from Iraq was no longer there. At any rate, it doesn’t appear now on the equivalent BBC webpage, viewed from here in Australia.

I’d guess the most likely explanation is that the original (highly deceptive) photo was taken from BBC archives, used in this article for its high dramatic impact – then quickly replaced when the BBC became aware someone had spotted the deception. If that’s not what actually happened, perhaps the BBC would care to correct me?

This is not the first time I’ve reported on image fakery with regard to Syria. The western media’s sustained attack on that beleaguered nation has now been underway for more than a year. A comprehensive account of all its deceptions and misreporting over that period would fill many volumes.
No-one ever seems to be held accountable for the gross breaches of journalistic ethics that do come to light. Jobs in organisations like Reuters and the BBC must be relaxing. Unlike humble bloggers out here in the ‘real world’, these folk don’t need to bother about truth and accuracy. If they ever do get busted by a wary public, their butt is always well-protected.

George Orwell’s book 1984 is often viewed as a parody of totalitarian states such as Soviet Russia, even though the tale was actually set in England.

I think there’s another possibility. In the early 1940s, Orwell spent a year devising war propaganda for the BBC. Working at the Beeb was probably all the inspiration he needed to write the most famous dystopia of his century..

US State Department's Russian "Journalist"

US State Department leash overtly leads to yet more sedition in Russia.
by Tony Cartalucci


May 15, 2012 - As chaos consumes Libya, with death squads roaming the fractured nation committing atrocities, torture, racist genocide, and mired in infighting, and with the violence in Syria now fully exposed as foreign terrorists organized, armed, directed, and staged since 2007 by the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, one might think journalists today would be careful about invoking these "successes" while trying to sow destabilization elsewhere. But for Russian "journalist" Yulia Latynina, repeating US State Department talking points, no matter how hypocritical, no matter how oafishly in contradiction to reality, is just another day on the job.

Photo: Meet "independent journalist" Yulia Latynina, yet another facet of the Russian "opposition," carefully honed by the US State Department for years. This award ceremony took place in 2008.

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Her connections to foreign interests going back years, Yulia Latynina's more recent work could just as easily have been penned by US State Department International Republican Institute (IRI) chairman, John McCain, with one article titled, "Inside Russia: Putin’s Private National Guard," featuring comparisons between Russian President Vladimir Putin to Peter the III, Syria's Bashar al-Assad, Libya's Muammar Qaddafi, and Haiti's Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier, over accusations that the Russian government was possibly forming a "national guard" for internal security. Despite no official statement of any kind being made of such a force, with the Russian government specifically denying the report, Latynina went on anyway, using the mere rumor as a vehicle to aerate US State Department talking points.

Photo: A "Human Rights Award" is given to Russian "journalist" Yulia Latynina in Washington D.C., in 2008. To this day, Latynina is an obedient propagandist defending both the US State Department's funded protests in the streets of Moscow, and functionaries of the Rothschild banking dynasty, including jailed oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky in her article, "Why Some Bankers Get Special Treatment."

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Latynina's connections to the US State Department go beyond merely parroting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and echoing columns published in the State Department's National Endowment for Democracy publication, "Democracy Digest," she has also met directly with State Department officials. And while other Western proxies constituting Russia's "opposition" have been caught filing into the US Embassy in Moscow, Latynina has actually traveled all the way to Washington D.C. to speak directly with former Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice in 2008, and to receive a "Human Rights Award." During her award ceremony in Washington, she met with Daniel Fried, also of the US State Department, described as a "foreign policy hawk," and joined John McCain in calls to support and even arm Georgia in its growing conflict with Russia.

Photo: 2008, the same year Georgia and Russia's deadly conflict broke out, Yulia Latynina was in Washington D.C. shaking hands with Daniel Fried, one of many responsible for the US' arming of Georgian forces who would end up claiming the lives of scores of Russian soldiers and hundreds in South Ossetia. Despite what appears to be very overt treason, Latynina still enjoys undermining her own nation, at Echo Moscow in Russia, a radio station frequently defended and cited by the US State Department.

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Latynina, who consorts with foreigners not only systematically attacking her own nation politically and covertly through foreign-backed opposition movements, but by arming proxy nations in combat against her own nation, seems a fair candidate for charges of treason. Yet in the "despotic" Russia she describes every time her pen meets paper, she is allowed to carry on; carry on consorting with foreigners, carry on fueling a foreign-funded opposition movement, carry on shaking hands with men who helped arm militaries that in turn claimed Russian lives.

Latynina, like all of the US State Department's propagandists, attempts to peddle the narrative that Russia struggles before a morally superior "international order." Russia - while flawed and as imperfect as any government - cannot hold a candle to the scope of human suffering caused by the West in recent years.

From NATO-backed genocidal death squads scouring Libya to US-backed Al Qaeda terrorists in Syria, to the 2 million killed in Iraq (includes 1 million starved to death by US/UN sanctions), to the countless dead in Afghanistan, to the borders of Pakistan where families are wiped out regularly by "accidental drone attacks," to the interior of Africa where tens of thousands are forcibly removed from their homes by US-trained military forces on behalf of land-grabbing US and British firms - to then point a finger at Russia for "maybe," "possibly" thinking of creating an internal security force to deal with an opposition demonstratively run by the US State Department, with its supporters literally shaking hands with those responsible for arming nations that have killed fellow Russian's - is indicative of the imperial psychosis gripping the West.

Such hypocrisy exhibited by US-subsidized propagandists so willfully divorced from reality also reveals the fathomless illegitimacy of Russia's so-called "opposition."