Tag: Washington

We are above the law declares county attorney

Habersham County, Georgia, U.S., the jurisdiction that allowed intentionally or through negligence a SWAT team to break into a home with violent force in the middle of the night and throw a stun grenade into a baby’s face sending him to a hospital for weeks where he was in life support, has ruled that it would be illegal for the county to pay the baby’s medical bills.

The negligence of the police, and thereby the county, is a triple dose. It was the wrong house. A SWAT team was unnecessary in order to exercise a search warrant for a drug suspect. There was no excuse for throwing a stun grenade into a baby’s crib.

But the county attorney has ruled that the county is not liable for these massive incidences of unbridled negligence.

However, the unjustifiable SWAT team assault on the family in the home was legal.

As the saying goes, “a fish rots from the head.” The rot in government accountability that began in Washington has now reached the local level.

Washington has placed the world on the road to war

Does the world have a death wish?

by Paul Craig Roberts

Update: A fabricated report was spread by the UK Guardian newspaper and BBC that a Russian armored convoy entered Ukraine and was destroyed by the Ukrainian military. The German media including Die Welt picked up the false report and spread the hysteria. Once again we have confirmation that the Western media is corrupt and unreliable.

The drums for war are being loudly beaten in Washington, European capitals, and the presstitute Western media. A headline in the Asia Times is “NATO Is Desperate For War.”  This time the target is Russia, a major nuclear power.

The deadly consequences of such a war would extend beyond Russia, Europe, and the US to the entire world. The Western use of lies to demonize Russia endangers life on earth and reveals the West to be both reckless and irresponsible. Yet, few voices are raised against this recklessness and irresponsibility.

Ron Unz brings to our attention the important voice of a distinguished Dutch journalist, Karel Van Wolferen. Wolferen  and Unz himself are important offsets to what Unz regards, correctly in my opinion, as “the utter corruption and unreliability of the mainstream American media.”

Wolferen’s article is long but very important. Readers will see analysis akin to my own.

Wolferen shows how the Washington hegemon has captured Europe within an Atlanticist ideology that forecloses any independent thinking or foreign policy on the part of Europeans who are reduced to a state of vassalage. Wolferen concludes that as Washington drives Europe toward war, “Europeans cannot bring themselves to believe in the dysfunction and utter irresponsibility of the American state.”

With no internal checks on Washington’s recklessness from allies, the media, and US Senators, the only brake on Washington’s drive to war is Russian, Chinese, Indian, and South American diplomacy. If this diplomacy fails, Fukushima, as bad as it is, becomes a mere raindrop in the ocean.

The slaughter by Washington, Washington’s Kiev stooges and Washington’s EU vassals of civilians in the former Russian territories that comprise the southern and eastern borders of present-day Ukraine is not only largely unreported in the Western media, but also denied or blamed on Russia.

The crimes that Washington is perpetrating while blaming Russia have aroused a high level of anger among the Russian people. Such anger is dangerous as it could force Putin, who continues to emphasize non-confrontation , to turn away from diplomacy to violence.

Egor Prosvirnin, the chief editor of a Russian news site, shows us the extent of the anger in Russia caused by the dangerous mixture of Washington’s broken promises with the vicious propaganda war against Russia and the German government’s complicity.

Prosvirnin expresses anger that is white hot: “Germans have failed their test. When Evil has returned again to Europe, you do not even attempt to resist it, and immediately fall prostrate at its feet like a slave.” As Russians see it, all of Europe is a slave to the evil emanating from Washington.

Why did Merkel allow Washington to force Germany into a conflict with Russia that has produced enormous Russian anger toward Germany? What accounts for Merkel’s total failure as a leader?

The Clinton, Bush, and Obama regimes have set the world on the path to the final war.
How is it possible for their evil to go unrecognized?

The two murderous states are the US and Israel. By tolerating their endless slaughters and endless lies, the world prepares its own demise.

The only hope for life and truth is that the world unite against these two criminal governments, isolate them diplomatically and economically, and make it impossible for their government officials to travel abroad without being arrested and placed on trial.

Why does the world need Washington and Israel? Unless the world has a death wish, the world does not need Washington and Israel.

What Happened to the Malaysian Airliner?

If we are honest and have the strength to face reality, we will realize that the Soviet Union did not collapse. It simply moved, along with Mao and Pol Pot, to Washington and London.

By Paul Craig Roberts

Washington’s propaganda machine is in such high gear that we are in danger of losing the facts that we do have.

One fact is that the separatists do not have the expensive Buk anti-aircraft missile system or the trained personnel to operate it.

Another fact is that the separatists have no incentive to shoot down an airliner and neither does Russia. Anyone can tell the difference between low-flying attack aircraft and an airliner at 33,000 feet.

The Ukrainians do have Buk anti-aircraft missile systems, and a Buk battery was operational in the region and deployed at a site from which it could have fired a missile at the airliner.

Just as the separatists and the Russian government have no incentive to shoot down an airliner, neither does the Ukrainian government nor, one would think, even the crazed extreme Ukrainian nationalists who have formed militias to take the fight against the separatists that the Ukrainian army is not keen to undertake–unless there was a plan to frame Russia.

One Russian general familiar with the weapon system offered his opinion that it was a mistake made by the Ukrainian military untrained in the weapon’s use. The general said that although Ukraine has a few of the weapons, Ukrainians have had no training in their use in the 23 years since Ukraine separated from Russia. The general thinks it was an accident due to incompetence.

This explanation makes a certain amount of sense and far more sense than Washington’s propaganda. The problem with the general’s explanation is that it does not explain why the Buk anti-aircraft missile system was deployed near or in a separatist territory. The separatists have no aircraft. It seems odd for Ukraine to have an expensive missile system in an area in which it is of no military use and where the position could be overrun and captured by separatists.

As Washington, Kiev, and the presstitute media are committed to the propaganda that Putin did it, we are not going to get any reliable information from the US media. We will have to figure it out for ourselves.

One way to begin is to ask: Why was the missile system where it was? Why risk an expensive missile system by deploying it in a conflict environment in which it is of no use? Incompetence is one answer, and another is that the missile system did have an intended use.

What intended use? News reports and circumstantial evidence provide two answers. One is that the ultra-nationalist extremists intended to bring down Putin’s presidential airliner and confused the Malaysian airliner with the Russian airliner.

The Interfax news agency citing anonymous sources, apparently air traffic controllers, reported that the Malaysian airliner and Putin’s airliner were traveling almost the identical route within a few minutes of one another. Interfax quotes its source: “I can say that Putin’s plane and the Malaysian Boeing intersected at the same point and the same echelon. That was close to Warsaw on 330-m echelon at the height of 10,100 meters. The presidential jet was there at 16:21 Moscow time and the Malaysian aircraft at 15:44 Moscow time. The contours of the aircrafts are similar, linear dimensions are also very similar, as for the coloring, at a quite remote distance they are almost identical.”

I have not seen an official Russian denial, but according to news reports, the Russian government in response to the Interfax news report said that Putin’s presidential plane no longer flies the Ukraine route since the outbreak of hostilities.

Before we take the denial at face value, we need to be aware that the implication that Ukraine attempted to assassinate the president of Russia implies war, which Russia wants to avoid. It also implies Washington’s complicity as it is highly unlikely that Washington’s puppet in Kiev would risk such a dangerous act without Washington’s backing. The Russian government, being intelligent and rational, would obviously deny reports of an attempted assassination of the Russian president by Washington and its Kiev puppet. Otherwise, Russia has to do something about it, and that means war.

The second explanation is that the extremists who operate outside the official Ukrainian military, hatched a plot to down an airliner in order to cast the blame on Russia. If such a plot occurred, it likely originated with the CIA or some operative arm of Washington and was intended to force the EU to cease resisting Washington’s sanctions against Russia and to break off Europe’s valuable economic relationships with Russia. Washington is frustrated that its sanctions are unilateral, unsupported by its NATO puppets or any other countries in the world except possibly the lap-dog British PM.

There is considerable circumstantial evidence in support of this second explanation. There is the youtube video which purports to be a conversation between a Russian general and separatists who are discussing having mistakenly brought down a civilian airliner. According to reports, expert examination of the code in the video reveal that it was made the day before the airliner was hit.

Another problem with the video is that whereas we could say that separatists conceivably could confuse an airliner at 33,000 feet with a military attack plane, the Russian military would not. The only conclusion is that by involving the Russian military, the video doubly discredited itself.

The circumstantial evidence easiest for non-technical people to understand is the on cue news programs organized to put the blame on Russia prior to the knowledge of any facts.

In my previous article I reported on the BBC news report which I heard and which was obviously primed to place all blame on Russia. The program ended with a BBC correspondent breathlessly reporting that he has just seen the youtube video and that the video is the smoking gun that proved Russia did it. There is no longer any doubt, he said. Somehow the information got on a video and on youtube before it reached the Ukrainian government or Washington.

The evidence that Putin did it is a video made prior to the attack on the airliner. The entire BBC report aired over National Public Radio was orchestrated for the sole purpose of establishing prior to any evidence that Russia was responsible.

Indeed the entire Western media spoke as one: Russia did it. And the presstitutes are still speaking the same way.

Possibly, this uniform opinion merely reflects the pavlovian training of the Western media to automatically line up with Washington. No media source wants to be subject to criticism for being unamerican or to find itself isolated by majority opinion, which carries the day, and earn black marks for being wrong. As a former journalist for, and contributor to, America’s most important news publications, I know how this works.

On the other hand, if we discount the pavlovian conditioning, the only conclusion is that the entire news cycle pertaining to the downing of the Malaysian airliner is orchestrated in order to lay the blame on Putin.

Romesh Ratnesar, deputy editor of Bloomberg Businessweek, provides convincing evidence for orchestration in his own remarks of July 17. Ratnesar’s opinion title is: “The Malaysia Airlines Shootdown Spells Disaster for Putin.” Ratnesar does not mean that Putin is being framed-up. He means that prior to Putin having the Malaysian airliner shot down, “to the vast majority of Americans, Russia’s meddling in Ukraine has largely seemed of peripheral importance to U.S. interests. That calculus has changed. . . . It may take months, even years, but Putin’s recklessness is bound to catch up to him. When it does, the downing of MH 17 may be seen as the beginning of his undoing.”

As a former Wall Street Journal editor, anyone who handed me a piece of shit like Ratnesar published would have been fired. Look at the insinuations when there is no evidence to support them. Look at the lie that Washington’s coup is “Russia’s meddling in Ukraine.” What we are witnessing is the total corruption of Western journalism by Washington’s imperial agenda. Journalists have to get on board with the lies or get run over.

Look around for still honest journalists. Who are they? Glenn Greenwald, who is under constant attack by his fellow journalists, all of whom are whores. Who else can you think of? Julian Assange, locked away in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London on Washington’s orders. The British puppet government won’t permit free transit to Assange to take up his asylum in Ecuador. The last country that did this was the Soviet Union, which required its Hungarian puppet to keep Cardinal Mindszenty interred in the US Embassy in Budapest for 15 years from 1956 until 1971. Mindszenty was granted political asylum by the United States, but Hungary, on Soviet orders, would not honor his asylum, just as Washington’s British puppet, on Washington’s orders, will not honor Assange’s asylum.

If we are honest and have the strength to face reality, we will realize that the Soviet Union did not collapse. It simply moved, along with Mao and Pol Pot, to Washington and London.

The flaw in Putin’s diplomacy is that Putin’s diplomacy relies on good will and on truth prevailing. However, the West has no good will, and Washington is not interested in truth prevailing but in Washington prevailing. What Putin confronts is not reasonable “partners,” but a propaganda ministry aimed at him.

I understand Putin’s strategy, which contrasts Russian reasonableness with Washington’s threats, but it is a risky bet. Europe has long been a part of Washington, and there are no Europeans in power who have the vision needed to separate Europe from Washington. Moreover, European leaders are paid large sums of money to serve Washington. One year out of office and Tony Blair was worth $50 million dollars.

After the disasters that Europeans have experienced, it is unlikely that European leaders think of anything other than a comfortable existence for themselves. That existence is best obtained by serving Washington. As the successful extortion of Greece by banks proves, European people are powerless.

Here is the official statement of the Russian Defense Ministry.

Washington’s propaganda assault against Russia is a double tragedy, because it has diverted attention from Israel’s latest atrocity against the Palestinians locked up in the Gaza Ghetto. Israel claims that its air attack and invasion of Gaza is merely Israel’s attempt to find and close the alleged tunnels through which Palestinian terrorists pour into Israel inflicting carnage. Of course there are no tunnels and no terrorist carnage in Israel.

One might think that at least one journalist somewhere in the American media would ask why bombing hospitals and civilian housing closes underground tunnels into Israel. But that is too much to ask of the whores that comprise the US media.

Expect even less from the US Congress. Both the House and Senate have passed resolutions supporting Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians. Two Republicans–the despicable Lindsey Graham and the disappointing Rand Paul–and two democrats–Bob Menendez and Ben Cardin–sponsored the Senate resolution backing Israel’s premeditated murder of Palestinian women and children. The resolution passed the “exceptional and indispensable” people’s Senate unanimously.

As a reward for its policy of genocide, the Obama regime is immediately transferring $429 million of US taxpayers’ money to Israel to pay for the slaughter.

Contrast the US government’s support for Israel’s war crimes with the propaganda onslaught against Russia based on lies. We are living all over again “Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction,” “Assad’s use of chemical weapons,” “Iranian nukes.”

Washington has lied for so long that it can’t do anything else.

President Reagan appointed Dr. Paul Craig Roberts Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and he was confirmed in office by the U.S. Senate. From 1975 to 1978, Dr. Roberts served on the congressional staff where he drafted the Kemp-Roth bill and played a leading role in developing bipartisan support for a supply-side economic policy. After leaving the Treasury, he served as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Commerce. He has written written many articles and several books.

Washington isolating itself says German analyst

Christoph R. Horstel, government consultant and publicist, based in Germany, discusses the situation in Ukraine.

On June, 20 Ukraine’s recently elected president, Petro Poroshenko, ordered a unilateral ceasefire between government-backed forces and independence supporters in the east until June, 27 to defuse the crisis in the country, promising amnesty for all independence defense forces not involved in grave crimes and willing to lay down their arms.

Pro-independence forces in the South East said they do not believe in the goodwill of the Kiev authorities, and that Poroshenko is not in control.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has pointed out that Poroshenko’s peace plan bears no mention of a nationwide dialogue.

Says Christoph R. Horstel, government Consultant and publicist, Germany:

“In fact, if you offer a peace plan, that plan should address the problems which have lead into a violation of peace. But the Poroshenko’s plan has never addressed anything, except for one point – complete obedience, subordination of all the Ukrainian people under the rule in Kiev, which is the result of the coup d’état – the second in ten years – a strange kind of election where a majority was no longer necessary, and meanwhile we had rumors that there were frauds all over the place with the presidential election and the government is still in the interim regime.

I think Poroshenko is a deeply criminal person and that is a big trouble for Ukraine. He is just walking after Washington and that’s a very bad story now.

What now? What could be the implications for Poroshenko?

And if I were a citizen of that area, I would never drop my arms, of course, because that is the only chance I have. Otherwise these people would be just an easy prey for whoever comes and tries to destroy homes or take away the men, and what else has happened in the past – all these kinds of atrocities.

Could it be that the Western media eventually stops to overlook how things really are in Ukraine?

What we have is a general line. The general line is not friendly to Russia.

But what we also have is so much information on the Internet about things contradicting the Washington policies and so much unhappiness among the European politicians with the same Washington policies, that in fact the media are now in a very awkward point. If they continue publishing the official stuff coming from Washington via the Western capitals to the big media, then they will lose the credibility with the population to such an extent, that their economic survival would be endangered even more than now.

You know, we have a reduced circulation number of major papers. The interest in the Internet versions of these papers is so weak, in fact, that they cannot sell their content. This is another problem of this big media. And that is what would aggravate very quickly, if they continue lying in the same fashion and strength that they had in the past.

You’re also saying that politicians are getting increasingly unhappy with the current situation?

Yes, a huge scandal has broken open in Poland. [The scandal erupted last weekend, when a Polish news outlet Wprost released a transcript of an excerpt from secretly recorded conversations involving Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski who was describing his country’s security relationship with the United States as “worth nothing.” ]

And that is in fact shaking Europe, because Poland was always considered to be the mainstay of the American interests, especially against Russia. And now the Foreign Minister, being married to an American national, he himself spoke out in such a brutal blunt way, that everybody is in fact shocked. And that makes waves in Facebook and all the alternative media in the Internet. People are crying “hoo” and “wow” and think that is very interesting, and they are very happy, and they are rejoicing it and things like that. So, in fact, they treat him as a hero. He is a hero, Mr. Sikorski.

In Germany we have a former member of the Foreign Committee of the German Bundestag, Mr. Gauweiler, who is an important person in the Conservative Party in southern Germany, saying that this is all going wrong regarding Russia and Ukraine and he is opposed to it. We have the former politicians speaking out in large numbers. And we know that the whole German Government is very uneasy. The economic circles are up in arms in an unprecedented way since the WW II. So, if that is not enough, I don’t know what is.

But does that imply that perhaps we are going to see a change of heart and a change of course in the West?

I think something is still missing. And I’m wondering myself what that could be. We have so terrible pictures from Ukraine. You cannot in this 21st century oppress people like we have see in the Middle Ages, that this is crazy.

In fact, if we look at the details, we see that the real terror operation by Kiev. We have heard that the professional killers trained by the CIA in Poland are used in Ukraine to kill their own people, their own brothers and sisters, so to say, in such a fashion. This is something terrible. The European people may be corrupt, there may be bad governments, but they are not stupid. And they have open eyes, they see these realities themselves, even if they push their media to publish otherwise. That is the situation. It is a complete hypocrisy phenomena we have there in politics today.

But, at the same time, if Russia actively intervenes, Russia would be there to blame.

Of course! And I’m quite sure, if that happens, if Russia takes out a big stick, that is something Washington is hoping for all the time. This is why they are going so hardcore and push Ukraine to execute these wishes. They hope that Russia would be unwise and come in with big troops, and take up the battle. And I don’t think Russia will do that.

It drives the Western politicians nuts. They get crazy over the fact that Russia is patient, very constructive, all the time talking to everybody explaining exactly what they are doing and the Western side is looking like a warmonger all the time. That cannot continue that way for a long time in the West.

And there is another aspect to that, as far as I understand, shares of leading Western companies are going down. And that is a brilliant chance for the Chinese.

Germany, yes, is doing quite well, but all the other countries in Europe are further and further down the road. These are huge inroads also on the technological advantage of the Western countries, which is diminishing day by day, because they have to simply sell their nuggets to the Chinese in such a bad situation.

So, in fact, one of the big winners keeping out of most of the trouble is China right now.

What we have is that all of these countries – Russia and China, and others – investing a lot of money into armament, and this comes only because of these Washington hegemonic terror policies.

Which means that Washington’s policy is reinforcing China, which Washington sees as its biggest adversary. Where is the logic?

There is no strategy anymore. There is no plan reaching beyond a few months. That is very bad. We have all kinds of plans, of course, of interference and scenarios by the military, and these things. But what we do not have is a real policy – policy planning, policy strategy to go ahead constructively. What Washington is doing, is isolating itself as if it was its own arch enemy.

Source: VoR

 

Obama ready to end US embargo against Cuba?

At the end of last week, Uruguayan President Jose Mujica passed along a message from US President Barack Obama to Cuban leader Raul Castro, in which Obama demonstrated willingness to hold a dialogue aimed at cancelling the US embargo against Cuba, the Uruguayan newspaper Busqueda said with reference to sources in official circles.

The newspaper claims that Obama’s message was passed along to Castro by President of Uruguay on the sidelines of the summit in the Group of 77 and China format, which took place at the end of last week in the Bolivian city of Santa Cruz. Meanwhile, the newspaper does not specify in what form this message was given – oral or written.

For his part, Castro “shows great interest” having expressed willingness for rapprochement between Havana and Washington, but only in case the US did not impose their point of view.

According to the newspaper, Mujica assessed the meeting with Castro as “fairly optimistic”.

In May, Mujica visited the USA on an official visit and held talks with the US President. According to the Uruguayan newspaper, it was at this meeting that Obama reported to Mujika his readiness for closer ties with Havana.

Washington imposed sanctions against Cuba in 1961, after the failure of the operation aimed at overthrowing the government of Fidel Castro. In 1996, the US Congress adopted the “Helms – Burton Act” on additional sanctions against foreign companies trading with Cuba.

Source: Voice of Russia

US mortgage applications remain weak despite rising home prices

Fierce bidding wars for homes in the nation’s capital are slashing applications from borrowers interested in taking out a purchase mortgage, an industry group said Wednesday.

Around the country, rising mortgage rates over the past year have cut applications for loans to buy a home, with the latest weekly reading on a U.S. gauge from the Mortgage Bankers Association showing a 5% drop from the prior week (as seen in the chart). But in hot markets like Washington, where there’s a low supply of homesavailable for sale and borrowers  haven’t been put off by pricier loans, would-be mortgage applicants are still giving up on borrowing.

“Some lenders continue to report that they have pre-approved borrowers who have been unable to find a property given the tight inventory in certain markets,” said Mike Fratantoni, MBA’s chief economist.

Just how hot is D.C.’s market? More than one-quarter of homes sold in May closed above their list price, according to Redfin, a real estate firm. But that statistic pales in comparison to the scorching markets in San Jose and San Francisco, where almost 70% of homes sold above their asking price.

Elsewhere in the country, rising rates are taking a toll on loan applications from borrowers who have become priced out of the market. Plus, borrowers still face the extremely high standards that lenders erected in the wake of the financial crisis.

Source: WSJ

Washington’s Iraq ‘Victory’

The citizens of the United States still do not know why their government destroyed Iraq.

The citizens of the United States still do not know why their government destroyed Iraq. “National Security” will prevent them from ever knowing. “National Security” is the cloak behind which hides the crimes of the US government.

George Herbert Walker Bush, a former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency who became President courtesy of being picked as Ronald Reagan’s Vice President, was the last restrained US President. When Bush the First attacked Iraq it was a limited operation, the goal of which was to evict Saddam Hussein from his annexation of Kuwait.

Kuwait was once a part of Iraq, but a Western colonial power created new political boundaries, as the Soviet Communist Party did in Ukraine. Kuwait emerged from Iraq as a small, independent oil kingdom.

According to reports, Kuwait was drilling at an angle across the Iraq/Kuwait border into Iraqi oil fields. On July 25, 1990, Saddam Hussein, with Iraqi troops massed on the border with Kuwait, asked President George H. W. Bush’s ambassador, April Glaspie, if the Bush administration had an opinion on the situation. Here is Ambassador Glaspie’s reply:

“We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary [of State James] Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960’s that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America.”

According to this transcript, Saddam Hussein is further assured by high US government officials that Washington does not stand in his way in reunifying Iraq and putting a halt to a gangster family’s theft of Iraqi oil:

“At a Washington press conference called the next day, State Department spokesperson Margaret Tutweiler was asked by journalists:

‘Has the United States sent any type of diplomatic message to the Iraqis about putting 30,000 troops on the border with Kuwait? Has there been any type of protest communicated from the United States government?’

“to which she responded: ‘I’m entirely unaware of any such protest.’

“On July 31st, two days before the Iraqi invasion [of Kuwait], John Kelly, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs, testified to Congress that the ‘United States has no commitment to defend Kuwait and the U.S. has no intention of defending Kuwait if it is attacked by Iraq’.”

Was this an intentional a set-up of Saddam Hussein, or did the Iraqi takeover of Kuwait produce frantic calls from the Bush family’s Middle Eastern business associates?

Whatever explains the dramatic, sudden, total change of position of the US government, the result produced military action that fell short of war on Iraq itself.

From 1990 until 2003 Iraq was acceptable to the US government.

Suddenly, in 2003 Iraq was no longer acceptable. We don’t know why. We were told a passel of lies: Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that were a threat to America. The spectre of a “mushroom cloud over an American city” was raised by the National Security Advisor. The Secretary of State was sent to the UN with a collection of lies with which to build acceptance of US naked aggression against Iraq. The icing on the cake was the claim that Saddam Hussein’s secular government “had al Qaeda connections,” al Qaeda bearing the blame for 9/11.

As neither Congress nor the US media have any interest to know the reason for Washington’s about face on Iraq, the “Iraq Threat” will remain a mystery for Americans.

But the consequences of Washington’s destruction of the secular government of Saddam Hussein, a government that managed to hold Iraq together without the American-induced violence that has made the country a permanent war zone, has been ongoing years of violence on a level equal to, or in excess of, the violence associated with the US occupation of Iraq.

Washington is devoid of humanitarian concerns. Hegemony is Washington’s only concern. As in Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Pakistan,Yemen, Ukraine, Syria, and Iraq, Washington brings only death, and death is ongoing in Iraq.

On June 12, 500,000 residents of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, benefactors of Washington’s “freedom and democracy” liberation, fled the city as the American trained army collapsed and fled under al Qaeda attack. The Washington-installed government, fearing Baghdad is next, has asked Washington for air strikes against the al Qaeda troops. Tikrit and Kirkuk have also fallen. Iran has sent two battalions of Revolutionary Guards to protect the Washington-installed government in Baghdad.

(After this article was published, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani dismissed the widespread news reports–Wall Street Journal, World Tribune, The Guardian, Telegraph, CNBC, Daily Mail, Times of Israel, etc.–that Iran has sent troops to help the Iraqi government. Once again the Western media has created a false reality with false reports.)

Does anyone remember the propaganda that Washington had to overthrow Saddam Hussein in order to bring “freedom and democracy and women’s rights to Iraqis”? We had to defeat al Qaeda, which at the time was not present in Iraq, “over there before they came over here.”

Do you remember the neoconservative promises of a “cakewalk war” lasting only a few weeks, of the war only costing $70 billion to be paid out of Iraqi oil revenues, of George W. Bush’s economic advisor being fired for saying that the war would cost $200 billion? The true cost of the war was calculated by economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard University budget expert Linda Bilmes who showed that the Iraqi war cost US taxpayers $3 trillion dollars, an expenditure that threatens the US social safety net.

Do you remember Washington’s promises that Iraq would be put on its feet by America as a democracy in which everyone would be safe and women would have rights?

What is the situation today?

Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq, has just been overrun by al Qaeda forces. These are the forces that Washington has claimed a number of times to have completely defeated.

These “defeated” forces now control Iraq’s second largest city and a number of provinces. The person Washington left in charge of Iraq is on his knees begging Washington for military help and air support against the Jihadist forces that the incompetent Bush regime unleashed in the Muslim world.

What Washington has done in Iraq and Libya, and is trying to do in Syria, is to destroy governments that kept Jihadists under control. Washington faces the prospect of a Jihadist government encompassing Iraq and Syria. The Neoconservative conquest of the Middle East is becoming an al Qaeda conquest.

Washington has opened Pandora’s Box. This is Washington’s accomplishment in the Middle East.

Even as Iraq falls to al Qaeda , Washington is supplying the al Qaeda forces attacking Syria with heavy weapons. It is demonized Iran that has sent troops to defend the Washington-installed regime in Baghdad! Is it possible for a country to look more foolish than Washington looks?

One conclusion that we can reach is that the arrogance and hubris that defines the US government has rendered Washington incapable of making a rational, logical decision. Megalomania rules in Washington.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.

Biden tells Germans they are xenophobic

Before remarking on Germany’s xenophobia, Joe Biden said the US needed to invest further in a skilled workforce and infrastructure.

US Vice President Joe Biden undoubtedly ruffled some feathers in Germany on Tuesday when he suggested the country was “xenophobic” and much less accommodating to immigrants compared to the United States.

Speaking at an event held by the National Association of Manufacturers in Washington, DC, Biden gave a speech in which he described three things the United States needs to do to “keep our edge” in the global economy. One of these priorities is passing comprehensive immigration reform, but the way Biden chose to frame the issue has made headlines and raised plenty of eyebrows.

“We have to pass an immigration bill,” Biden said, as quoted by the Washington Examiner, which also obtained a recording of the segment. “Look at Germany, look at the rest of the world. We’re the only non-xenophobic nation in the world that’s a major economy.”

In a tweet by Detroit News DC Bureau Chief David Shepardson, the journalist said Biden went even further than that and added other countries in the mix, claiming that Germany, Japan, and China are all “not nearly as welcoming of immigrants” as the US.

Biden reportedly did not expand on his analysis, leaving many to question just how truthful it was. As noted by the German edition of The Local, the notion that Germany is hostile to immigrants doesn’t fit in with the facts inside Europe’s largest economy.

According to a May report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Germany has experienced a “boom” in immigration over the last few years, leapfrogging Canada and the United Kingdom to take second place as a top destination for migrants around the world, behind only the US. The OECD stated that between 2009 and 2012, permanent migration rose 38 percent as Germany moved up from eight place.

“Such a strong increase from one year to another has been rarely observed in any major OECD country,” Thomas Liebig, one of the study’s authors, said to Bloomberg. “We can clearly speak about a boom of migration to Germany without exaggeration.”

Meanwhile, The Local noted that new data from Germany’s Federal Statistics Office show more than 15.3 million people out of the country’s 81 million-strong population have a migrant background.

Before remarking on Germany’s xenophobia, Biden said the US needed to invest further in a skilled workforce and infrastructure, bemoaning the current lack of consensus on the issue.

“We have to invest in infrastructure,” he said. “That used to be an overwhelming bipartisan consensus in the united states of America. For the past 150 years it’s been a consensus; not at the moment.”

Notorious for making controversial statements or gaffes, Biden’s comments regarding Germany aren’t the first time he’s been scrutinized. The vice president made waves in the past for being caught on a hot mic telling President Obama the Affordable Care Act is a “big f**king deal,” announcing his support for gay marriage before the president himself, and making questionable comments like telling a politician in a wheelchair to stand up for an applause. – RT.COM

Obama comes out against self-determination

pcrBy Paul Craig Roberts.

The White House Fool has repeatedly declared erroneously and foolishly that it is “against international law” for Crimea to exercise self-determination. Self-determination, as used by Washington, is a propaganda term that serves Washington’s empire but is not permissible for real people to exercise.

On March 6 Obama telephoned Putin to tell the Russian President again that only Washington has the right to interfere in Ukraine and to insist against all logic that only the “government” in Kiev installed by the Washington-organized coup is “legitimate” and “democratic.”

In other words, the elected government in Crimea pushed by the people in Crimea to give them a vote on their future is “undemocratic” and “illegitimate,” but a non-elected government in Kiev imposed by Washington is the voice of self-determination and legitimacy.

Washington is so arrogant that it never occurs to the hubris-infected fools what the world thinks of Washington’s blatant hypocrisy.

Since the Clinton regime, Washington has done nothing but violate international law–Serbia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Honduras, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia.

Does Russia have an Africa Command? No, but Washington does.

Is Russia surrounding the US with military bases? No, but Washington has used the NATO organization, whose purpose disappeared 23 years ago, to organize western, eastern, and southern Europe into an empire army with forward bases on Russia’s borders. Washington is determined to extend the boundaries of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization to Georgia in central Asia and to Ukraine on the Black Sea. Both Georgia and Ukraine are former constituent parts of both Russia and the Soviet Union.

Washington is doing the same thing to China and Iran. Washington is working to establish new air and naval bases in Philippines, South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Australia, with which to block the flow of oil and other resources into China. Iran is surrounded by some 40 US military bases and has US fleets standing off its coastline.

In Washington’s propaganda, this rank militarism is presented as “defending democracy.”

The Russian government continues to act as though Washington’s thrusts at Russia’s independence and strategic interests can be defused with good sense and good will. But Washington has neither.

Since the Clinton regime, Washington has been in the hands of a collection of ideologues who are convinced that the US is “the exceptional indispensable country” with the right to world hegemony. Everything that Washington has done in the 21st century is in pursuit of this goal.

Washington intends to break up the Russian Federation itself. Washington funnels huge sums of money into NGOs inside Russia that serve as Washington Fifth Columns and work hand-in-hand with Washington to discredit Russian free elections, to demonize Putin and the Russian government, to spread anti-Russian propaganda and agitation. It is amazing how many Russians actually believe the Western propaganda.

Washington is also working to isolate China with the Trans-Pacific-Partnership, but at this time is primarily focused on destabilizing and isolating Russia. Washington is desperate to break up the BRICS, the emerging organization of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. With the largest countries and half of the world’s population, the BRICS organization is emerging as a political and economic power, especially with the organization’s plan to cease using the US dollar as reserve currency. Ringing Russia with US missile bases on Russia’s borders impairs Russian sovereignty and independence and, thus, weakens the BRICS as a countervailing power to Washington.

Many have been deceived by Washington’s propaganda. The world is slowly waking up, but is it in time?

The US media and much of Europe’s speak with one voice parroting Washington’s propaganda, demonizing Washington’s targets, and preparing insouciant Western populations for more war. The Western media, like Western governments, is devoid of integrity. Liars and whores rule.

Paul Craig Roberts is an economist and a nationally syndicated columnist for Creators Syndicate. He served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration earning fame as the “Father of Reaganomics”. He is a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, among others. He has recently published How the Economy Was Lost: The War of the Worlds and is coauthor with Lawrence Stratton of The New Color Line and The Tyranny of Good Intentions.

Propaganda rules the news: Russia never invaded Ukraine

pcrGerald Celente calls the Western media “presstitutes,” an ingenuous term that I often use. Presstitutes sell themselves to Washington for access and government sources and to keep their jobs. Ever since the corrupt Clinton regime permitted the concentration of the US media, there has been no journalistic independence in the United States except for some Internet sites.

Glenn Greenwald points out the independence that RT, a Russian media organization, permits Abby Martin who denounced Russia’s alleged invasion of Ukraine, compared to the fates of Phil Donahue (MSNBC) and Peter Arnett (NBC), both of whom were fired for expressing opposition to the Bush regime’s illegal attack on Iraq. The fact that Donahue had NBC’s highest rated program did not give him journalistic independence. Anyone who speaks the truth in the American print or TV media or on NPR is immediately fired.

Russia’s RT seems actually to believe and observe the values that Americans profess but do not honor.

I agree with Greenwald. Greenwald is entirely admirable. He has intelligence, integrity, and courage. He is one of the brave to whom my just published book, How America Was Lost, is dedicated. As for RT’s Abby Martin, I admire her and have been a guest on her program a number of times.

My criticism of Greenwald and Martin has nothing to do with their integrity or their character. I doubt the claims that Abby Martin grandstanded on “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine” in order to boost her chances of moving into the more lucrative “mainstream media.” My point is quite different. Even Abby Martin and Greenwald, both of whom bring us much light, cannot fully escape Western propaganda.

For example, Martin’s denunciation of Russia for “invading” Ukraine is based on Western propaganda that Russia sent 16,000 troops to occupy Crimea. The fact of the matter is that those 16,000 Russian troops have been in Crimea since the 1990s. Under the Russian-Ukrainian agreement, Russia has the right to base 25,000 troops in Crimea.

Apparently, neither Abby Martin nor Glenn Greenwald, two intelligent and aware people, knew this fact. Washington’s propaganda is so pervasive that two of our best reporters were victimized by it.

As I have written several times in my columns, Washington organized the coup in Ukraine in order to promote its world hegemony by capturing Ukraine for NATO and putting US missile bases on Russia’s border in order to degrade Russia’s nuclear deterrent and force Russia to accept Washington’s hegemony.

Russia has done nothing but respond in a very low-key way to a major strategic threat orchestrated by Washington.

It is not only Martin and Greenwald who have fallen under Washington’s propaganda. They are joined by Patrick J. Buchanan. Pat’s column calling on readers to “resist the war party on Crimea” opens with Washington’s propagandistic claim: “With Vladimir Putin’s dispatch of Russian Troops into Crimea”.

No such dispatch has occurred. Putin has been granted authority by the Russian Duma to send troops to Ukraine, but Putin has stated publicly that sending troops would be a last resort to protect Crimean Russians from invasions by the ultra-nationalist neo-nazis who stole Washington’s coup and established themselves as the power in Kiev and western Ukraine.

So, here we have three of the smartest and most independent journalists of our time, and all three are under the impression created by Western propaganda that Russia has invaded Ukraine.

It appears that the power of Washington’s propaganda is so great that not even the best and most independent journalists can escape its influence.

What chance does truth have when Abby Martin gets kudos from Glenn Greenwald for denouncing Russia for an alleged “invasion” that has not taken place, and when independent Pat Buchanan opens his column dissenting from the blame-Russia-crowd by accepting that an invasion has taken place?

The entire story that the presstitutes have told about the Ukraine is a propaganda production. The presstitutes told us that the deposed president, Viktor Yanukovych, ordered snipers to shoot protesters. On the basis of these false reports, Washington’s stooges, who comprise the existing non-government in Kiev, have issued arrest orders for Yanukovych and intend for him to be tried in an international court. In an intercepted telephone call between EU foreign affairs minister Catherine Ashton and Estonian foreign affairs minister Urmas Paet who had just returned from Kiev, Paet reports: “There is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers, it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new coalition.” Paet goes on to report that “all the evidence shows that the people who were killed by snipers from both sides, among policemen and then people from the streets, that they were the same snipers killing people from both sides . . . and it’s really disturbing that now the new coalition, that they don’t want to investigate what exactly happened.” Ashton, absorbed with EU plans to guide reforms in Ukraine and to prepare the way for the IMF to gain control over economic policy, was not particularly pleased to hear Paet’s report that the killings were an orchestrated provocation.

What has happened in Ukraine is that Washington plotted against and overthrew an elected legitimate government and then lost control to neo-nazis who are threatening the large Russian population in southern and eastern Ukraine, provinces that formerly were part of Russia. These threatened Russians have appealed for Russia’s help, and just like the Russians in South Ossetia, they will receive Russia’s help.

The Obama regime and its presstitutes will continue to lie about everything.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. His latest books are, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and How America Was Lost. 

Iraq, Afghan war costs to top $4 trillion

maimedThe U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will cost taxpayers $4 trillion to $6 trillion, taking into account the medical care of wounded veterans and expensive repairs to a force depleted by more than a decade of fighting, according to a new study by a Harvard researcher.

Washington increased military benefits in late 2001 as the nation went to war, seeking to quickly bolster its talent pool and expand its ranks. Those decisions and the protracted nation-building efforts launched in both countries will generate expenses for years to come, Linda J. Bilmes, a public policy professor, wrote in the report that was released Thursday.

“As a consequence of these wartime spending choices, the United States will face constraints in funding investments in personnel and diplomacy, research and development and new military initiatives,”the report says. “The legacy of decisions taken during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will dominate future federal budgets for decades to come.”

Bilmes said the United States has spent almost $2 trillion already for the military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. Those costs, she said, are only a fraction of the ultimate price tag. The biggest ongoing expense will be providing medical care and disability benefits to veterans of the two conflicts.

“Historically, the bill for these costs has come due many decades later,” the report says, noting that the peak disbursement of disability payments for America’s warriors in the last century came decades after the conflicts ended. “Payments to Vietnam and first Gulf War veterans are still climbing.”

Spending borrowed money to pay for the wars has also made them more expensive, the study noted. The conflicts have added $2 trillion to America’s debt, representing roughly 20 percent of the debt incurred between 2001 and 2012.

Bilmes’s estimate provides a higher range than another authoritative study on the same issue by Brown University’s Eisenhower Research Project. Brown researchers put the price tag at roughly $4 trillion.

Both figures are dramatically higher than what U.S. officials projected they would spend when they were planning to go to war in Iraq. Stephen Friedman, a senior White House official, left government in 2002 after irking his colleagues by publicly estimating that the Iraq war could end up costing up to $200 billion.

It’s unclear how long Washington will keep paying bills for that conflict, which dragged on for nearly a decade and became deeply unpopular at home and in Iraq. Judging from history, it could take quite awhile. The Associated Press recently found that the federal government is still cutting checks each month to relatives of Civil War veterans nearly 150 years after the end of that war.

Source: newsforage.com

Stasi Meets Steve Jobs

snoopingBy Eric Margolis

“Gentlemen do not read other gentlemen’s mail” sniffed US Secretary of State Henry Stimson in 1929 when told that American cryptographers had broken Japan’s naval and diplomatic codes.

Stimson, who later headed the War Department, ordered code-breaking shut down.

Alas, there are not any old-school gentlemen left in Washington these days. Revelations of US electronic spying by whistleblower Edward Snowden have ignited a furor across Latin America and now Europe.

This week’s uproar was intensified by claims that the US National Security Agency (NSA) had tapped into the cell phone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Europe’s most important and influential leader. Further outrage erupted in France after reports that its leaders and diplomats had been tapped by NSA’s big ears.

To no surprise, President Obama officially denied listening in to Merkel’s calls. A US source sought to lessen the damage by claiming NSA had only tapped her office phone, not her cell phone. German anger was not assuaged.

Back in the day, French Interior Ministers – notably Nicholas Sarkozy – used to stay up late poring over wire taps of fellow officials’ peccadillos. That was good fun. Today, by contrast, the NSA and CIA are sweeping up all communications of supposed allies as part of the runaway US national security state. Call it the Stasi meets Apple’s late Steve Jobs.

Last month alone, NSA reportedly sifted through 70 million French phone calls, text and email under the lame pretext of fighting terrorism. What NSA was really finding were the phone numbers of prominent Frenchmen’s mistresses or boyfriends – very useful for CIA blackmail ops – and important commercial information. Terrorism is a red herring. NSA’s run amok spying, allegedly to combat “terrorism,” is making a lot of Americans wonder again about the events of 9/11 that triggered the explosion of America’s spy state, restrictive laws, and foreign wars.

Still, one wonders if President Obama knew what his spies were doing. He has little control over the Pentagon and probably even less over America’s mammoth, ever-growing spy state built by former President George W. Bush that costs over $80 billion per annum. Some 4.8 million Americans now have secret security clearance and work for the octopod national security state.

Obama would not be the first president not to know what his spooks were up to. But he should have been this time. Bugging the leaders of America’s closest European and Latin American allies was an incredibly stupid act. Nothing thereby learned could have been worth the damage caused.

US Elint (electronic spying) has humiliated European and Latin leaders and made them and NATO look like American vassals to be dismissed or disdained.

How can Europe’s leaders face their own voters after this shameful episode? Revelations by Snowdon and Army private Bradley Manning show that Washington treats its NATO allies in the same imperious manner the old Soviet Union bossed around the Warsaw Pact.

Europe’s leaders are under mounting pressure to demonstrate their independence of Uncle Sam by taking some stern retaliatory action against US interests.

A starting point would be building a brand-new electronic communications architecture for Western Europe that resists US penetration, and creating a truly independent Europe military capability. Time for Europe to stop being foot soldiers to America’s nuclear knights.

US reputation in Europe and Latin America is now at an all-time low. The next NSA spying scandals will likely come from the Mideast, India and Pakistan, Canada, South Korea and Japan. Obama may be remembered as having gotten the world even angrier at the US than predecessor George W. Bush – quite an accomplishment.

Washington claims “everyone does spying.” True enough, but no one is anywhere close to NSA’s giant vacuum cleaner and all-hearing bugs. What the US has been doing is far more than information gathering against a handful of anti-American militants. It’s heavy-duty intimidation. A reminder that Big Brother is watching and listening.

The deeply corrupt US Congress won’t do much to curtail NSA’s information theft. Too many of its members profit from market trades made on the basis of NSA snooping.  – The Gulf Times

Debt ceiling crisis: Collapse will be worse than Great Depression

depressionYou can forget about any default in the debt ceiling crisis.  Former Assistant Treasury Secretary Dr. Paul Craig Roberts says, “The debt ceiling will be raised.  No government wants to lose its power or lose its ability to borrow.  So, if they don’t raise the debt ceiling, it is just a way of Washington committing hari-kari.  It simply removes the United States as a super power.”  

Dr. Roberts goes on to say, “If they don’t make a deal, one of two things will happen. . . . The Federal Reserve, on its own authority, lends the Treasury the money. . . . The other alternative, Obama . . . can simply declare a national emergency and raise the debt ceiling on his own initiative.  He could govern as a dictator.”

What would happen if the U.S. did default?  Dr. Roberts says, “The danger of default is the rest of the world dumps dollars.  If they dump dollars, the Fed loses control, the whole system blows up.  The banks fail.  The bond market collapses.  The stock market won’t go down 1,500 points; it would be cut in half. ”

No matter what happens, there is still an enormous and growing debt. 

Dr. Roberts contends, “The situation is unsustainable.”  It will blow up at some point, and Dr. Roberts predicts, “It will be worse than the Great Depression because in the Great Depression, prices fell along with employment.  Now, prices will be rising and employment would be falling. . . . Gold and silver prices will explode in dollar terms.”  – usawatchdog.com

Hundreds of AIPAC lobbyists to push for US attack on Syria

aipacThe influential pro-Israel American Israel Public Affairs Committee will deploy hundreds of activists next week to win support in Congress for military action in Syria, amid an intense White House effort to convince wavering U.S. lawmakers to vote for limited strikes.

“We plan a major lobbying effort with about 250 activists in Washington to meet with their senators and representatives,” an AIPAC source said on Saturday.

Congressional aides said they expected the meetings and calls on Tuesday, as President Barack Obama and officials from his administration make their case for missile strikes over the apparent use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government.

The vote on action in Syria is a significant political test for Obama and a major push by AIPAC, considered one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Washington, could provide a boost.

The U.S. Senate is due to vote on a resolution to authorize the use of military force as early as Wednesday. Leaders of the House of Representatives have not yet said when they would vote beyond saying consideration of an authorization is “possible” sometime this week.

Obama has asked Congress to approve strikes against Assad’s government in response to a chemical weapons attack.

But many Republicans and several of Obama’s fellow Democrats have not been enthused about the prospect, partly because war-weary Americans strongly oppose getting involved in another Middle Eastern conflict.

Pro-Israel groups had largely kept a low profile on Syria as the Obama administration sought to build its case for limited strikes after last month’s attack on rebel-held areas outside Damascus.

But they had generally wanted the debate to focus on U.S. national security rather than how a decision to attack Syria might help Israel, a reflection of their sensitivity to being seen as rooting for the United States to go to war. – Reuters