- Paul Craig Roberts: "Amnesty International Is Barking Up The Wrong Tree"
Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,
I have received a letter from Margaret Huang, Amnesty International’s executive director.
She is fundraising on the basis of President Trump’s “chilling disregard for our cherished human rights” and his exploitation of “hatred, misogyny, racism and xenophobia,” by which he has “emboldened and empowered the most violent segments of our society.”
Considering the hostility of Identity Politics toward Trump, one can understand why Ms. Huang frames her fundraiser in this way, but are the Trump deplorables the most empowered and violent segments of our society or is it the security agencies, the police, the neoconservatives, the presstitute media, and the Republican and Democratic parties?
John Kiriakou, Ray McGovern, Philip Giraldi, Edward Snowden, and others inform us that it is their former employers, the security agencies, that are empowered by unaccountability and violent by intent. Certainly the security agencies are emboldened by everything they have gotten away with, including their conspiracy to destroy President Trump with their orchestration known as Russiagate.
The violence that the US government has committed against humanity since the Clinton regime attacked Serbia was not committed by Trump deplorables. The violence that has destroyed in whole or part eight countries, murdering, maiming, and displacing millions of peoples, was committed by the Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama regimes, their secretaries of state such as Hillary Clinton, their national security advisers, their military and security establishments, both parties in Congress. The murder of entire countries was endorsed by the presstitute media and the heads of state of Washington’s European, Canadian, Australian, and Japanese vassals. Trump and his deplorables have a long way to go to match this record of violence.
Whether she understands it or not, Ms. Huang with her letter is shifting the violence from where it belongs to where it does not. The consequence will be to increase violence and human rights violations.
The most dangerous source of violence that we face is nuclear Armageddon resulting from the neoconservative quest for US hegemony. Since the Clinton regime every US government has broken tension-easing agreements that previous administrations had achieved with Moscow. During the Obama regime the gratuitous aggressions and false accusations against Russia became extreme.
Why doesn’t Amnesty International address the reckless and irresponsible acts of the US government that are violating the rights of people in numerous countries and pushing the world into nuclear war? Instead, there have been times when Amnesty International aligns with Washington’s propaganda against Washington’s victims.
By jumping on the military/security complex’s “get Trump movement”, human rights and environmental organizations have increased the likelihood that rights and environment will be lost to war.
There can be no doubt that Trump is undoing past environmental protections and opening the environment and wildlife to more destruction. However, the worst destruction comes from war, especially nuclear war.
Would things be different if the liberal/progressive/left had rallied to Trump’s support in reducing tensions with Russia, in normalizing the hostile relations that Obama had established with Moscow? Would the support of the liberal/progressive/left have helped Trump resist the pressures from the neoconservative warmongers? In exchange for support for his principal goal, would Trump have mitigated industry’s attacks on the environment and vetoed the renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that violates human rights?
We will never know, because the liberal/progressive/left could not see beyond the end of its nose to comprehend what it means for the environment and for human rights for nuclear powers to be locked into mutual suspicion.
Thanks to the failure of the liberal/progressive/left and to the presstitute media to understand the stakes, the military/security complex has been successful in pushing Trump off his agenda. The damage that a mining company and offshore drilling can do to the environment is large, but it pales in comparison to the damage from nuclear weapons.
- 80% Of All Bitcoins Have Already Been Mined…
Almost exactly 9 years after the first were ‘mined’, January 13th marked an important milestone for cryptocurrencies. 16.8 million bitcoins (BTC), or 80 percent of the entire Bitcoin supply, have now been mined.
As CoinTelegraph reports, this means only 4.2 million bitcoins, or 20 percent, are left to mine until Bitcoin’s 21 million supply cap is reached.
BTC contains the 21 mln cap built into its protocol by Satoshi Nakamoto, first mentioned in their 2008 White Paper, as a way to introduce digital scarcity to cryptocurrency. With such a cap in place, the more bitcoins are mined, the more scarcity is produced on the market.
Scarcity arguably creates demand, which in turns makes the coins more valuable. Once 21 million bitcoins have been mined, it will become even harder to obtain them, also potentially making each coin more valuable.
Miners currently receive a 12.5 BTC reward for every block that they mine, but Nakamoto’s protocol also requires that the mining reward is halved every 210,000 blocks, or approximately four years. The next miner halving will take place within two years, approximately in early June 2020 depending on hashrate, bringing the rewards down to 6.25 BTC per mined block.
Not every digital currency is mineable like BTC. Some cryptocurrencies are created with the entire supply released all at once, in which case the total supply is either held or in circulation and there is no way to “mine” or mint new coins.
Some examples of non-mineable digital currencies are Ripple, IOTA, NEM, NEO, Qtum, Omisego, Lisk, Stratis, Waves, and EOS.
Increasing supply
Skeptics have proposed that it is theoretically possible to increase Bitcoin’s 21 million capped supply of Bitcoin via a 51 percent or a Sybil attack, but so far neither of these manipulations has proven feasible in the case of BTC.
Altcoin Krypton, which is based on Ethereum, experienced a 51 percent attack in August 2016, but no other such attacks have taken place since then.
- Putin Plot? Democrats Ridiculed For Claiming Moscow Behind Chelsea Manning's Senate Run
Within hours of young trans woman whistleblower Chelsea Manning announcing her run for Senate against Benjamin Cardin, a 74-year-old white, straight man, establishment Democrats wasted no time in mocking and denouncing her bid, even embarrassing themselves by proclaiming it a Kremlin-engineered plot.
Anti-Russia conspiracy theorists have developed another outlandish claim, stating that Moscow is behind Chelsea Manning’s Senate bid, since she’s taking on an incumbent who is against so-called “Russian aggression.”
Manning says she’s running because “we need someone willing to fight… we need to stop expecting that our systems will somehow fix themselves.”
But, as RT notes, that reason seems too straightforward for those who apparently believe that everything related to US politics is somehow tied to Russia.
Taking to Twitter on Saturday, foreign policy and strategy consultant Molly McKew called Manning’s decision to run “a little too convenient,” noting that she is running against Senator Ben Cardin, who is “one of [the] most active senators on foreign policy and [a] leader in making policy/legislation to respond to Russian aggression.”
A little too convenient that Chelsea Manning will primary @SenatorCardin, one of most active Senators on foreign policy & leader in making policy/legislation to respond to Russian aggression, for MD Senate.
Guess that’s what Dem Tea Party is going to look like: Snowden party.— Molly McKew (@MollyMcKew) January 13, 2018
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In a separate tweet, RT reports that she referenced Manning’s whistleblowing and the apparent motive behind it. “The agent of a foreign power coerced this individual, leveraging their emotional distress, into breaking their oath to the country and disclosing classified secrets.”
I know there are a lot of people who still think of Manning as a whistleblower. But the agent of a foreign power coerced this individual, leveraging their emotional distress, into breaking their oath to the country and disclosing classified secrets. Period.
— Molly McKew (@MollyMcKew) January 13, 2018
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If McKew’s remarks seem hard to comprehend, that’s perfectly understandable. If you need them to be interpreted, it all boils down to the same old line: Russia did it. That’s right. Russia is responsible for Manning’s whistleblowing, and Russia is somehow behind her decision to run for office.
Her statements were called out by The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who helped make Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing a reality. “One of the media’s favorite Russia-obsessed ‘experts’ didn’t even wait an hour before depicting Chelsea Manning’s Senate candidacy as a dastardly Kremlin plot,” he tweeted. He went on to call out the “demonstrable, obvious falsehoods about Manning’s motives & WikiLeaks’ role” which McKew wrote about in her second tweet
One of the media’s favorite Russia-obsessed “experts” didn’t even wait an hour before depicting Chelsea Manning’s Senate candidacy as a dastardly Kremlin plot. Also, the second tweet here is full of demonstrable, obvious falsehoods about Manning’s motives & WikiLeaks’ role pic.twitter.com/RYBgUBstAM
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 13, 2018
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But McKew isn’t alone in her bold statements. A person by the name of Josh Manning, whose Twitter account says he is a civil rights investigator and something to do with “Army intel,” seems to believe the same.
“Senator Cardin authored and released a 200-page masterpiece on Russian influence in western elections. Suddenly he has a primary from Kremlin stooge Assange’s Wikileaks primary source Chelsea Manning. The Kremlin plays the extreme left to swing elections. Remember that,” he wrote.
Senator Cardin authored and released a 200 page masterpiece on Russian influence in western elections. Suddenly he has a primary from Kremlin stooge Assange’s Wikileaks primary source Chelsea Manning. The Kremlin plays the extreme left to swing elections. Remember that.
— (((Josh Manning))) (@joshuamanning23) January 14, 2018
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Greenwald also chimed in on Josh Manning’s tweet. “Oh my God: This is how deranged official Washington is. The president of the largest Dem Party think-tank (funded in part by dictators) genuinely believes Chelsea Manning’s candidacy is a Kremlin plot. Conspiracy theorists thrive more in mainstream DC than on internet fringes.”
Oh my god: this is how deranged official Washington is. The President of the largest Dem Party think tank (funded in part by dictators) genuinely believes Chelsea Manning’s candidacy is a Kremlin plot. Conspiracy theorists thrive more in mainstream DC than on internet fringes pic.twitter.com/e8g314iQHT
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 15, 2018
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We leave it up to the exquisitely mocking words of Greenwald to conclude:
This conspiracy theory mocks itself.
The idea that Vladimir Putin sat in the Kremlin, steaming over Benjamin Cardin’s report on Russia, and thus developed a dastardly plot to rid himself of his daunting Maryland nemesis – “I know how to get rid of Cardin: I’ll have a trans woman who was convicted of felony leaking run against him!” – is too inane to merit any additional ridicule.
But this is the climate in Washington: no conspiracy theory is too moronic, too demented, too self-evidently laughable to disqualify its advocates from being taken seriously – as long as it involves accusations that someone is a covert tool of the Kremlin.
Well said.
- Only 1-In-3 Americans Think Michael Wolff's Book Is Credible
Michael Wolff’s new book “Fire and Fury” has proven explosive, sending shockwaves across Washington and beyond.
In its first week of publication, it sold 29,000 copies according to NBD BookScan with digital sales reaching an estimated 250,000. President Trump has claimed Wolff was not provided with access to the White House and that the book is “full of lies, misrepresentations and sources that don’t exist”.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders also labeled Fire and Fury “complete fantasy”.
Wolff has defended himself against that criticism, insisting Trump is “a man who has less credibility than, perhaps, anyone who has ever walked on earth.”
Notably, however, Wolff did include a note at the beginning of the book where he says some of his sources were definitely lying to him while others offered contradictory reports, and this has cast doubt on the book’s credibility.
The end result of the sensational spat between Trump and Wolff is that the book is flying off the shelves.
But, given its success, Statista’s Niall McCarthy asks (and answers) what does the American public make of its accuracy?
You will find more statistics at Statista
A new Morning Consult/Politicopoll has found that a third of registered voters (32 percent) think the book is very or somewhat crediblewhile a quarter (25 percent) consider it not too or not at all credible. 20 percent of respondents either haven’t heard of it or have no opinion.
When it comes to political affiliation, unsurprisingly, 46 percent of Democrats view the book as credible while percent think it’s inaccurate.
Among Republicans, a 38 percent majority are skeptical about Fire and Fury while just under a quarter find it very or somewhat credible.
- This Town Is Proof That Trump's Wall Can Work
Authored by Paul Sperry, op-ed via The New York Post,
When charges of “racism” and “xenophobia” fail, Democrats’ fallback argument against President Trump’s proposed border wall is that it simply “won’t work,” so why waste billions building it? Tell that to the residents of El Paso, Texas.
Federal data show a far-less imposing wall than the one Trump envisions – a two-story corrugated metal fence first erected under the Bush administration – already has dramatically curtailed both illegal border crossings and crime in Texas’ sixth-largest city, which borders the high-crime Mexican city of Juarez.
In fact, the number of deportable illegal immigrants located by the US Border Patrol plummeted by more than 89 percent over the five-year period during which the controversial new fence was built, according to Homeland Security data reviewed by me. When the project first started in 2006, illegal crossings totaled 122,261, but by 2010, when the 131-mile fence was completed from one end of El Paso out into the New Mexico desert, immigrant crossings shrank to just 12,251.
They hit a low of 9,678 in 2012, before slowly ticking back up to a total of 25,193 last year. But they’re still well below pre-fence levels, and the Border Patrol credits the fortified barrier dividing El Paso from Mexico for the reduction in illegal flows.
And crime abated with the reduced human traffic from Juarez, considered one of the most dangerous places in the world due to drug-cartel violence, helping El Paso become one of the safest large cities in America.
Before 2010, federal data show the border city was mired in violent crime and drug smuggling, thanks in large part to illicit activities spilling over from the Mexican side. Once the fence went up, however, things changed almost overnight. El Paso since then has consistently topped rankings for cities of 500,000 residents or more with low crime rates, based on FBI-collected statistics. The turnaround even caught the attention of former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and other Obama administration officials, who touted it as one of the nation’s safest cities while citing the beefed-up border security there.
Federal data illustrates just how remarkable the turnaround in crime has been since the fence was built. According to FBI tables, property crimes in El Paso have plunged more than 37 percent to 12,357 from their pre-fence peak of 19,702 a year, while violent crimes have dropped more than 6 percent to 2,682 from a peak of 2,861 a year.
The overall crime rate in El Paso continued to fall last year, prompting city leaders to trumpet the good news in a press release that noted, “Because El Paso is a border town, its low crime rate may surprise you.”
El Paso City Manager Tommy Gonzalez boasted that the city will “continue to lead our country in public safety.”
Another core promise made by Trump to justify constructing a massive wall spanning from Texas to California is that it will slow the flow of drugs coming across the border from Mexico.
“We need the wall for security. We need the wall for safety,” Trump said last week while answering questions about the sweeping new GOP immigration bill. “We need the wall for stopping the drugs from pouring in.”
On that score, El Paso already has exceeded expectations.
Drug smuggling along that border entry point has also fallen dramatically. In fact, since the fence was completed, the volume of marijuana and cocaine coming through El Paso and seized by Border Patrol agents has been cut in half.
The year before the wall was fully built in 2010, the volume of illegal drugs confiscated by the feds along the El Paso border hit 87,725 pounds. The year after, the amount of drug seizures plummeted to 43,783 pounds. Last year, they dropped even further to a total of 34,329, according to Border Patrol reports obtained by The Post.
All told, a legion of empirical evidence supports the idea a southern border wall could, in fact, work. There is also anecdotal evidence. In local press accounts, El Paso residents and business owners alike have praised the fence, citing it as an effective deterrent to both illegal crossings and crime.
Now Trump plans to build a possibly bigger deterrent.
The existing fence along the El Paso sector, which is made of a combination of corrugated steel and metal meshing, towers 21-feet high at some points and is already hard to climb. But the Trump wall, which will begin construction in El Paso, will be even taller and have multiple layers of security.
Still, Democratic leaders are adamantly opposed to it. They argue the $18 billion wall won’t work to keep out illegal immigrants and drugs, and will only be a massive waste of tax dollars.
“We think, frankly, the building of the wall, its cost is not justified either by its efficiency or effectiveness,” House Minority Whip Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Thursday.
Even local Democrats are arguing with success.
“That wall in itself is a racist reaction to a racist myth that does not reflect the reality of this country at all,” said Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-El Paso).
- From Shahs To The CIA: The History Of Western Intervention In Iran – Part 2
In part 1 we examined the early history of the West’s domination of Persian natural resources, especially the establishment and rise of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company which led to multiple 20th century British interventions in Iranian politics in an attempt to ensure permanent access to oil. Part 2 tells the story of Operation Ajax.
“The Empire Must Go On”
Once Europe erupted in world war (WWI), the British dispatched their armed forced to refineries all over Iran in order to protect what they considered their property – Iranian oil. After the cessation of hostilities in 1919, the British bribed and intimidated the new regime of Ahmad Shah into accepting the terms of the much hated Anglo-Persian Agreement which in all but name, made Iran a protectorate of the British Empire. No longer would the Iranians control their own army, transportation system, and communications network. It all passed under the control British occupiers and with it the last vestiges of Iranian sovereignty. This once again ignited the fervent nationalist spirit across Iran and new rounds of protests and opposition.
Even the U.S. president, Woodrow Wilson, disapproved of the agreement. But, true to their colonial and imperialist spirit, the British rebuffed such protestations and opposition by saying, “These people have got to be taught at whatever cost to them, that they cannot get on without us. I don’t at all mind their noses being rubbed in the dust.” The empire must go on.
The opening sequence from the 2012 movie ‘Argo’ features a brief history of aggressive Western intervention which shaped modern Iran.
And go on it did, fueled by the black gold that flowed beneath the Iranian deserts. For the next thirty years, relations between the Iranians and the British revolved mainly around oil. The British deposed and installed new kings, and prime ministers and members of Iranian parliament were bought off to help ensure the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (by that time renamed the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, or AIOC) had a free hand in the exploration, refining, and exportation of Iranian oil. For that was indeed the bottom line for the British – the Iranian venture was extremely profitable for the them.
Churchill’s Dream Prize
Indeed, for Churchill, it was, “a prize from fairyland beyond our wildest dreams.” When they started in 1913, the British were extracting only 5,000 barrels of oils per day, and by 1950 they were extracting 664,000 per day. Had the wealth from the oil been humanely shared with the Iranian people, the Iranians themselves likely would have seen such growth as part of a mutually beneficial relationship and endeared them to the English. However, the long list of grievances hardened the hearts of the average Iranians and confirmed what they had long known: Britain was an empire whose only objective was preserving its interests, whatever the costs to Iranians, notwithstanding British protestations to the contrary.
It is easy enough, however, to see why the British were prepared to go to the extreme to protect their direct access to cheap Iranian oil. Iranian oil was vital, not only to the Royal navy, but to the entire economy of Great Britain and their way of life. It fueled their industries and growing automobile culture. The AIOC was a vast company with seemingly limitless profits and resources, yet it sought still more from the Iranians. From the British perspective the situation seemed like good capitalism, but from the perspective of the average Iranian, their British “benefactors” were greedy imperialists who were prepared to suck Iran dry.
The majles (Iranian parliament, which held its first session in 1906), weakened though it was, gradually regained strength throughout the late 20s, 30s, and 40s, mainly from the rise of anti-British and anti-Shah sentiment coursing through the nation. The majles forced the Shah and the oil companies to come to the negotiating table time and a again seeking just compensation and to redress the wrongs commited by the oil company. The list of grievances was indeed long. At the top was the irregular bookkeeping that systematically deprived them of their contractual rights to royalties. Instead of calculating the Iranian 20 percent before taxes, the British calculated the Iranians their portion after they had already sent huge sums to the British treasury, which meant, the Iranians received much smaller royalties.
Recently declassified documents like the above ‘The Battle for Iran, 1953’ (Contents page: view more here) tell the CIA’s secret internal history of the 1953 coup. It was only in 2013 that the CIA formally acknowledged its role in bringing down the Mossadegh government after the agency was forced to declassify and publish secret documents related to Operation Ajax, (and first disclosed by The New York Times’ James Risen) and to this day most Americans are unaware that it happened.
Additionally, in 1943 the British stubbornly, and in the eyes of the Iranians, greedily, refused to renegotiate their contract to reflect the growing global trend to fairer and more equal contracts. Venezuela signed a 50/50 deal with the foreign companies refining its oil; Aramco, an American oil company, signed a 50/50 deal with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia; and Mexico took advantage of the chaos of WWII and did the unthinkable and completely nationalized American and British oil companies. The Iranians felt it was time that the British dealt justly and fairly with them as well.
Not only did the British fail to fairly compensate the Iranians for their oil, they only paid them in sterling, effectively barring them from buying from other countries and forcing them to buy from the British. They also secretly conducted geological explorations without the consent of the Iranian government, much less the Iranian people. These explorations, plus the building of pipelines, often laid waist to forests, water sources, and other natural resources resulting in massive ecological disasters. To add insult to injury, the British often imported labor from neighboring countries, rather then giving the Iranians the opportunity to work and make a living, much less take leading and managerial positions, in their nation’s most vital industry. Squalid company housing, hospitals, and working conditions coupled with firings and military action against unions were also on the Iranians’ long list of grievances against the oil company.
The Shah meets the CIA
Beginning in the mid-40s tensions between Iranian workers and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Copany came to a critical impasse. In July of 1945 7,500 AIOC workers led an unsuccessful strike demanding equal pay, decent housing, and paid Fridays. They took to the streets again in May of 1946 with similarly disappointing results. It wasn’t until May of 1946 when 50,000 workers organized the greatest strike in Iranian history that the AIOC realized it had no way forward unless it made some concessions, though they probably came too little, too late to turn the tide of antiimperialism/colonialism felt by the vast majority of Iranians.
Negotiations between the majles and the AIOC stalled and stagnated for the next 5 years. With each passing year, the bitterness and resentment grew among the Iranian people who were tired of decades of what they felt was theft and national humiliation at the hands of British colonialists. The thirty-year old monarch, Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi did little to assist his countrymen in redressing the wrongs of the British. In fact, at the height of the conflict between the majles and the AIOC, the young Shah abandoned Iran and set off on a American expedition where he mingled with the most wealthy and powerful of America’s elites.
In November of 1949, at the invitation of Allen Dulles, the future head of CIA introduced Mohammed Reza Shah to the members of the newly formed Overseas Consultants Inc. Mohammed Reza singlehandedly committed his country to paying the OCI an astonishing $650 million to complete a massive development project in Iran. The deal was not well received at home since the majles had not approved of it or been consulted. It did nothing more than stoke the flames of revolution that much more. The final straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back came in March of 1951.
Nationalizing Oil under Mohammed Mossadegh
Having failed to reach a just and equitable agreement with the AIOC, the majles felt it had no other recourse than to take the course of action that the Mexicans had taken a decade before and nationalize their oil industry. In March of 1951 the majles voted to take that fateful step and a few days later they elected the charismatic nationalist, Mohammed Mossadegh to the office of prime minister. One of the first casualties of the Mossadegh-led majles was the $650 million OCI deal, an act Allen Dulles would remember with bitter resentment. Mossadegh believed with every ounce of his body that the Iranian oil fundamentally belonged to the Iranians. Prior agreements with corrupt kings could not and should not be honored since they were made without the knowledge or consent of the people through their elected officials.
Meanwhile the British took no notice of these legitimate claims and by June British warships menaced the Iranian coast and plans had been drawn involving seventy thousand troops invading Iran to seize what it claimed were British oil fields. The American ambassador, Henry Grady, warned the Truman administration that the British intransigence and belligerence was utter folly and could easily trigger World War III. Truman, in no uncertain terms, informed Churchill that the United States would not agree to or support the overthrow of another democratically elected government.
Even after nationalization, the Iranians sought to compensate the British by sharing 25 percent of the net profits of the oil operation. It also guaranteed that the British citizens who stayed and worked for the newly formed Iranian Oil Company would be welcome to stay. It would also continue to sell the oil exactly as the British had done making sure not to disrupt the long established system of controls. The British were not content with these compromises and stubbornly insisted on a return to the status quo where they, and they alone owned, managed, and controlled every aspect of the Iranian oil industry. “We English have had hundreds of years of experience on how to treat the natives. Socialism is all right back home, but out here you have to be the master” boasted one British minister.
British Dirty Tricks, Eisenhower, and the Dulles Brothers
Over the next year the British contemplated every trick they had learned in their long years of empire building: sabotage, assassination, bribery, and even a full on military invasion. But Truman’s opposition to regime change limited their options. So in the meantime they settled on imposing a crippling blockade of Iranian ports so that no country could buy oil from the Iranians. Any tankers caught trying to slip through would be detained.
The British also took their case to the International Court of Justice in the hopes of getting the international community to bolster its position only to be told that the ICJ had no jurisdiction in the case since it involved agreements between Iran and a private company. They took their case once again to the UN in New York in the fall of 1952 but met a brick wall there as well. Mohammed Mussadegh was present and he spoke forcefully and eloquently about the plight of the Iranians and about the history of the AIOC’s predations. His speech was well received especially by those leaders who themselves had been brought to power on the waves of nationalism in Asia, Africa, and South America.
Having exhausted all resources, the British resolved to covertly overthrow Mohammed Mossadegh, even though 95-98 percent of the population of Iran time and time again favored him as their one true leader in elections and referendums. They could not count on the Truman administration for support, so they bided their time until after the 1952 elections which could bring someone that was more to their way of thinking or could be brought around to it. They found such a men in Dwight Eisenhower, in his Secretary of State, Foster Dulles, and in Allen Dulles, head of the CIA.
A Deep State Purge
The British argument for overthrow rested on the necessity to regain the control of the oil industry away from the Iranians. However, that argument alone would not be enough to win over Eisenhower and Dulles. All three men were ardent anti-communist and the British used that to their advantage painting Mossadegh as a communist at worst and at best, a weak leader who’s government could easily fall which could lead to a Soviet takeover of Iran. These were all the reasons and proofs Eisenhower and Dulles needed. Without consulting experts or career diplomats on Iranian affairs they forged ahead with their plan to help the British topple Mossadegh.
They even went so far as to dismiss any who disagreed with them. One such unfortunate was none other than the chief of the CIA field office in Tehran, Roger Goiran. If any body knew what the realities on the ground were, it was he. Having learned of the plot he was repulsed by the idea, and thought that regime overthrow in the cause of a preemptive strike of sorts in order to prevent the Soviets from theoretically moving in was too dramatic a move. His objection was noted after which he was quickly relieved of his duties and replaced by Kermit Roosevelt, one of the conspirators.
Ultimately, seasoned intelligence veteran Goiran disagreed with and was subsequently purged by the ‘deep state‘ as Stephen Kinzer’s book All the Shah’s Men (John Wiley and Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey, 2003, pg. 164) explains:
Goiran had built a formidable intelligence network, known by the code name Bedamn, that was engaged in propaganda activities aimed at blackening the image of the Soviet Union in Iran. It also stood ready to launch a nationwide campaign of subversion and sabotage in case of a communist coup. The Bedamn network consisted of more than one hundred agents and had an annual budget of $1 million–quite considerable, in light of the fact that the CIA’s total worldwide budget for covert operations was just $82 million. Now Goiran was being asked to use his network in a coup against Mossadegh. He believed that this would be a great mistake and warned that if the coup was carried out, Iranians would forever view the United States as a supporter of what he called “Anglo-French colonialism.” His opposition was so resolute that Allen Dulles had to remove him from his post.
This was new and unchartered territory for the United States in Iran or anywhere. Up to then, most Iranians had a positive view of America and look up to Americans because of their own revolutionary history, constitution, form of government, and insistence on the rule of law.
Operation Ajax Launched with False Flag subversion
The Iranians viewed the Americans as allies and friends. By undertaking regime change, the Americans risked losing the goodwill of the Iranians and earning their much deserved scorn. Nevertheless, Kermit Roosevelt took the reins of the operation and plotted his coup for several months. Once he was given the green light by the Dulles brothers and President Eisenhower, Roosevelt set his plan in motion. In late July of 1953 he crossed over into Iran under an assumed name and headed directly to Tehran to meet up with the valuable Iranian, British, and American assets. They immediately set out to subvert the Mossadegh government by paying off street gangs, corrupt mullas, and radio stations to create entirely fabricated anti-Mossadegh protests. They also bribed members of the majles to support a vote of no confidence. Mossadegh caught on to the plot and immediately dissolved the assembly, denying the conspirators any chance at a quasi-legal way of deposing him.
Persian soldiers chase rioters during CIA-orchestrated civil unrest in Tehran, August 1953. Archive photo via Foreign Policy magazine.
Once plan A crumbled, Roosevelt put plan B into action which called for the Shah himself to sign royal decrees dismissing Mossadegh from office and appointing General Fazlollah Zahedi as his new prime minister. The Shah demurred, going so far as running away to the Caspian Sea. In the end Roosevelt caught up with him and convinced him him to sign.
On the night of August 14, 1953 Roosevelt sent Colonel Nassiri and a contingency of soldiers to Mossadegh’s house. Their task was to present the royal decrees to Mossadegh and take him into custody. To their surprise, Mossadegh had been tipped off about the plot and had in the shadows a contingency of officers of his own ready to take Col. Nassiri and his men into custody. The following morning, Radio Tehran announced that the government had successfully foiled the plot by the Shah and foreign elements to overthrow the government.
Having heard the news, Roosevelt’s CIA superiors urged him to give up the plot and return home. However, not being one to back down, Roosevelt forged ahead. For the next 4 days, through his Iranians assests Roosevelt hired more street gangs to simultaneously put on pro and anti Mossedegh demonstrations. The demonstrations had the desired effect of plunging Tehran into an abyss of violence and lawlessness.
Coup d’etat
On August 19th the violence reached its climax paving the way for the final part of Roosevelt’s plan: a full on military coup. At noon the military and police officers Roosevelt had bribed, stormed and took control of the foreign ministry, the central police station, the headquarters of the army’s general staff, and laid siege to Mossadegh’s house. Mossadegh narrowly managed to escape, but turned himself in the following day to General Fazlollah Zahedi, not wanting to be the cause of further blood shed. Zahedi played a large role in the coup in cooperation with the CIA and Britain’s MI6, and would go on to replace Mossadegh as prime minister.
The fall of Mossadegh, on August 20th, 1953 also marked the end of Iran’s long and painful march to true and complete democracy and national sovereignty. It also marked the beginning of a 26 year reign of corruption and oppression in which Mohammed Reza Shah, quickly returned to power by the 1953 coup d’état, brutally stamped out the pro-democratic reforms of the majles, violently put down any opposition, as well as what arguably angered the Iranians the most: the Shah returned the oil industry back to Western corporations, once again depriving the citizenry of the wealth that rightly belonged to them.
Iranians, unlike many average Americans who are not taught this history in school, have always known that America was involved in the overthrow of their democratically elected government and have thus hated the US government ever since. This hatred was seen most vividly in 1979 Islamic Revolution when 52 embassy staff in Tehran were held hostage for 444 days.
It was only in 2013 that the CIA formally acknowledged its role in bringing down the Mossadegh government after the agency was forced to declassify and publish secret documents related to Operation Ajax, (and first disclosed by The New York Times’ James Risen) and to this day most Americans are unaware that it happened. Yet it is essential to understanding the historical domino effect that American and British interventionism played in bringing the US and Iran to their modern period marked by decades of animosity and enduring mutual distrust.
- As No One Watched, Trump Pardoned 5 Megabanks For Corruption Charges
Authored by Richard Blevins via The Free Thought Project,
While Americans celebrated the holidays, President Trump followed in the footsteps of his predecessors by acting in the interest of Wall Street and using the distraction to do something that was not in the best interest of the American people. He pardoned five megabanks for rampant fraud and corruption, which is especially notable because of the amount of money he owes them.
Trump has been using Deutsche Bank since the 1990s, and Financial Times has reported that he now owes the bank at least $130 million in outstanding loans secured in properties in Miami, Chicago, and Washington. However, the report claimed that the actual number is likely much larger at $300 million.
Reports claimed that Deutsche was the only bank willing to lend Trump money after his companies faced multiple bankruptcies. The relationship has continued over the years, and an analysis from the Wall Street Journal claimed that Trump has received at least $2.5 billion in loans from Deutsche Bank over the last 20 years.
There have been concerns about Trump’s ties to the bank becoming a conflict of interest, dating back to the 2016 election, and the evidence to support those concerns is now becoming clear.
During the week of Christmas, the Federal Register announced that the Trump Administration had issued waivers to Citigroup, JPMorgan, Barclays, UBS, and Deutsche Bank – all megabanks facing charges of fraud and corruption.
The banks were involved in the LIBOR Scandal, in which they colluded to deliberately depress the rate at which they paid out on investments. By suppressing the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) at the beginning of an economic crisis in 2007, the megabanks were able to boost their earnings and to give their customers a false sense of security.
Deutsche Bank pled guilty to wire fraud in a U.S. court in 2015, and it went on to pay $3.5 billion for its role in the LIBOR scandal—more than any other bank involved—before it reached a $7.2 billion settlement with the Justice Department in early 2017.
Then in June 2017, Deutsche Bank trader David Liew, who is based in Singapore, pleaded guilty to conspiring to spoof gold, silver, platinum and palladium futures in federal court in Chicago, confirming that the biggest banks in the world have conspired to rig precious metals markets.
While Trump granted 5-year exemptions to Citigroup, JPMorgan, and Barclays, and 3-year exemptions to UBS and Deutsche Bank, it should be noted that his administration is not the only one to have done this. As International Business Times noted, “In late 2016, the Obama administration extended temporary one-year waivers to five banks,” which just happened to be the same ones Trump has now extended the exemptions on—revealing the real rulers in DC.
Not surprisingly, the latest decision to pardon the banks comes in stark contrast to one of Trump’s most applauded campaign promises – that he would finally stand up against Wall Street and demand that the most powerful banks be held accountable to the public.
“I’m not going to let Wall Street get away with murder. Wall Street has caused tremendous problems for us. We’re going to tax Wall Street,” Trump said during a campaign rally in January 2016.
- Cryptos Slide After Yet Another South Korean Shutdown Headline
Cryptocurrencies are sliding once again as Asia opens following headlines from South Korea’s finance ministry that a cryptocurrency exchange shutdown is still an option (but admittedly it needs “serious” discussion among ministries first).
While all of the main South Korean ministries agree that there is irrational speculation in cryptocurrency and rational regulation are needed to curb the speculation, only the Justice Ministry has said the shut down of cryptocurrency exchanges is needed as other ministries are concerned about side effects.
As Yonhap reports again, The Office for Government Policy Coordination made the announcement, downplaying the justice minister’s remark last week that the government is working on legislation to close all virtual currency exchanges to tackle speculation.
“The proposed shutdown of exchanges that the justice minister recently mentioned is one of the measures suggested by the justice ministry to curb speculation. A government-wide decision will be made in the future after sufficient consultation and coordination of opinions,” the office said in a statement.
Ripple is leading the overnight slam (down around 10%)…
Which leaves Ripple down 25% year-to-date (while Ethereum remains up around 65%)…
Bitcoin just broke back below $13,000 having tested above $14,000 during the day…
The irony is that all of this ‘news’ hit last night (and has done numerous times) but keeps getting regurgitated as new headlines that take the cryptos down briefly.
- As Petro-Yuan Looms, Bundesbank Adds Renminbi To Currency Reserves
Just days after China’s (denied) threat to slow/stop buying US Treasuries, and just days before the launch of China’s petro-yuan futures contract, Germany’s central bank confirmed it would include China’s Renminbi in its reserves.
The FT reports that Andreas Dombret, a member of Deutsche Bundesbank’s executive board, said at the Asian Financial Forum in Hong Kong on Monday that the central bank had “decided to include the RMB in our currency reserves”.
He said: “The RMB is used increasingly as part of central banks’ foreign exchange reserves; for example, the European Central Bank included the RMB [as a reserve currency].”
The Bundesbank’s six-member board took the decision to invest in renminbi assets in mid-2017, but it was not publicly announced at the time. No investments have been made yet; preparations for purchases are still ongoing.
The inclusion in the German central bank’s reserves basket underscored China’s increasing prominence in the global financial landscape, and reflected policies aimed at making the currency more freely tradable internationally.
Mr Dombret said:
“The notable development from the European point of view over the past few years has been the growing international role of the RMB in global financial markets.”
The offshore Yuan strengthened on the news overnight – pushing to its strongest in over 2 years…
And as Les Echoes reports, while the Bundesbank wants to integrate the yuan into its foreign exchange reserves, the Banque de France is already using it as a currency of diversification.
The Banque de France has raised a corner of the veil on its strategy of managing foreign exchange reserves.
“The foreign currency holdings remain overwhelmingly invested in US dollars, with diversification to a limited number of international currencies such as the Chinese renminbi.“
Which currency would you rather hold as a stable reserve?
The US Dollar has been quite volatile over the last 18 months against a broad basket of its largest trading partners.
The Chinese Renminbi, however, has been very stable over the last 18 months against a broad basket of its largest trading partners (despite volatility against the dollar).
As a reminder, last week, the People’s Bank of China decided to drop a mechanism it recently created to support the renminbi and safeguard it against capital flight, in a sign of rising confidence in the currency. Mr Dombret said the move was “something which we welcome very much”.
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