Aug 19

Today’s News 19th August 2018

  • Sanctions, Sanctions, Sanctions – The Final Demise Of The Dollar Hegemony?

    Authored by Peter Koenig via The Saker Blog,

    Sanctions left and sanctions right. Financial mostly, taxes, tariffs, visas, travel bans – confiscation of foreign assets, import and export prohibitions and limitations; and also punishing those who do not respect sanctions dished out by Trump, alias the US of A, against friends of their enemies. The absurdity seems endless and escalating – exponentially, as if there was a deadline to collapse the world. Looks like a last-ditch effort to bring down international trade in favor of — what? – Make America Great Again? – Prepare for US mid-term elections? – Rally the people behind an illusion? – Or what?

    All looks arbitrary and destructive. All is of course totally illegal by any international law or, forget law, which is not respected anyway by the empire and its vassals, but not even by human moral standards. Sanctions are destructive. They are interfering in other countries sovereignty. They are made to punish countries, nations, that refuse to bend to a world dictatorship.

    Looks like everybody accepts this new economic warfare as the new normal. Nobody objects. And the United Nations, the body created to maintain Peace, to protect our globe from other wars, to uphold human rights – this very body is silent – out of fear? Out of fear that it might be ‘sanctioned’ into oblivion by the dying empire? – Why cannot the vast majority of countries – often it is a ratio of 191 to 2 (Israel and the US) – reign-in the criminals?

    Imagine Turkey – sudden massive tariffs on aluminum (20%) and steel (50%) imposed by Trump, plus central bank currency interference had the Turkish Lira drop by 40%, and that ‘only’ because Erdogan is not freeing US pastor Andrew Brunson, who faces in Turkey a jail sentence of 35 years for “terror and espionage”. An Izmir court has just turned down another US request for clemency, however, converting his jail sentence to house arrest for health reason. It is widely believed that Mr. Brunson’s alleged 23 years of ‘missionary work’ is but a smoke screen for spying.

    President Erdogan has just declared he would look out for new friends, including new trading partners in the east – Russia, China, Iran, Ukraine, even the unviable EU, and that his country is planning issuing Yuan-denominated bonds to diversify Turkey’s economy, foremost the country’s reserves and gradually moving away from the dollar hegemony.

    Looking out for new friends, may also include new military alliances. Is Turkey planning to exit NATO? Would turkey be ‘allowed’ to exit NATO – given its strategic position maritime and land position between east and west? – Turkey knows that having military allies that dish out punishments for acting sovereignly in internal affair – spells disaster for the future. Why continue offering your country to NATO, whose only objective it is to destroy the east – the very east which is not only Turkey’s but the world’s future? Turkey is already approaching the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) and may actually accede to it within the foreseeable future. That might be the end of Turkey’s NATO alliance.

    What if Iran, Venezuela, Russia, China – and many more countries not ready to bow to the empire, would jail all those spies embedded in the US Embassies or camouflaged in these countries’ national (financial) institutions, acting as Fifth Columns, undermining their host countries’ national and economic policies? – Entire cities of new jails would have to be built to accommodate the empire’s army of criminals.

    Imagine Russia – more sanctions were just imposed for alleged and totally unproven (to the contrary: disproven) Russian poisoning of four UK citizens with the deadly nerve agent, Novichok – and for not admitting it. This is a total farce, a flagrant lie, that has become so ridiculous, most thinking people, even in the UK, just laugh about it. Yet, Trump and his minions in Europe and many parts of the world succumb to this lie – and out of fear of being sanctions, they also sanction Russia. What has the world become? – Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, would be proud for having taught the important lesson to the liars of the universe: “Let me control the media, and I will turn any nation into a herd of Pigs”. That’s what we have become – a herd of pigs.

    Fortunately, Russia too has moved away so far already from the western dollar-controlled economy that such sanctions do no longer hurt. They serve Trump and his cronies as mere propaganda tools – show-offs, “we are still the greatest!”.

    Venezuela is being sanctioned into the ground, literally, by from-abroad (Miami and Bogota) Twitter-induced manipulations of her national currency, the Bolívar, causing astronomical inflations – constant ups and downs of the value of the local currency, bringing the national economy to a virtual halt. Imported food, pharmaceuticals and other goods are being deviated at the borders and other entry points, so they will never end up on supermarket shelves, but become smuggle ware in Colombia, where these goods are being sold at manipulated dollar-exchange rates to better-off Venezuelan and Colombian citizens. These mafia type gangs are being funded by NED and other similar nefarious State Department financed “NGOs”, trained by US secret services, either within or outside Venezuela. Once infiltrated into Venezuela – overtly or covertly – they tend to boycott the local economy from within, spread violence and become part of the Fifth Column, primarily sabotaging the financial system.

    Venezuela is struggling to get out of this dilemma which has people suffering, by de-dollarizing her economy, partly through a newly created cryptocurrency, the Petro, based on Venezuela’s huge oil reserves and also through a new Bolivar – in the hope of putting the breaks on the spiraling bursts of inflation. This scenario reminds so much of Chile in 1973, when Henry Kissinger was Foreign Secretary (1973-1977), and inspired the CIA coup, by “disappearing” food and other goods from Chilean markets, killing legitimately elected President Allende, bringing Augusto Pinochet, a horrendous murderer and despot to power. The military dictatorship regime brought the death and disappearance of tens of thousands of people and lasted until 1990. Subjugating Venezuela might, however, not be so easy. After all, Venezuela has 19 years of revolutionary Chavista experience – and a solid sense of resistance.

    Iran – is being plunged into a similar fate. For no reason at all, Trump reneged on the five-plus-one pronged so-called Nuclear Deal, signed in Vienna on 14 July 2015, after almost ten years of negotiations. Now – of course driven by the star-Zionist Netanyahu – new and ‘the most severe ever’ sanctions are being imposed on Iran, also decimating the value of their local currency, the Rial. Iran, under the Ayatollah, has already embarked on a course of “Resistance Economy”, meaning de-dollarization of their economy and moving towards food and industrial self-sufficiency, as well as increased trading with eastern countries, China, Russia, the SCO and other friendly and culturally aligned nations, like Pakistan. However, Iran too has a strong Fifth Column, engrained in the financial sector, that does not let go of forcing and propagating trading with the enemy, i.e. the west, the European Union, whose euro-monetary system is part of the dollar hegemony, hence posing similar vulnerability of sanctions as does the dollar.

    China – the stellar prize of the Big Chess Game – is being ‘sanctioned’ with tariffs no end, for having become the world’s strongest economy, surpassing in real output and measured by people’s purchasing power, by far the United States of America. China also has a solid economy and gold-based currency, the Yuan – which is on a fast track to overtake the US-dollar as the number one world reserve currency. China retaliates, of course, with similar ‘sanctions’, but by and large, her dominance of Asian markets and growing economic influence in Europe, Africa and Latin America, is such that Trump’s tariff war means hardly more for China than a drop on a hot stone.

    North Korea – the much-touted Trump-Kim mid-June Singapore summit – has long since become a tiny spot in the past. Alleged agreements reached then are being breached by the US, as could have been expected. All under the false and purely invented pretext of DPRK not adhering to her disarmament commitment; a reason to impose new strangulating sanctions. The world looks on. Its normal. Nobody dares questioning the self-styled Masters of the Universe. Misery keeps being dished out left and right – accepted by the brainwashed to-the-core masses around the globe. War is peace and peace is war. Literally. The west is living in a “peaceful” comfort zone. Why disturb it? – If people die from starvation or bombs – it happens far away and allows us to live in peace. Why bother? – Especially since we are continuously, drip-by-steady drip being told its right.

    In a recent interview with PressTV I was asked, why does the US not adhere to any of their internationally or bilaterally concluded treaties or agreements? – Good question. – Washington is breaking all the rules, agreements, accords, treaties, is not adhering to any international law or even moral standard, simply because following such standards would mean giving up world supremacy. Being on equal keel is not in Washington’s or Tel Aviv’s interest. Yes, this symbiotic and sick relationship between the US and Zionist Israel is becoming progressively more visible; the alliance of the brute military force and the slick and treacherous financial dominion – together striving for world hegemony, for full spectrum dominance. This trend is accelerating under Trump and those who give him orders, simply because “they can”. Nobody objects. This tends to portray an image of peerless power, instilling fear and is expected to incite obedience. Will it?

    What is really transpiring is that Washington is isolating itself, that the uni-polar world is moving towards a multipolar world, one that increasingly disregards and disrespects the United States, despises her bullying and warmongering – killing and shedding misery over hundreds of millions of people, most of them defenseless children, women and elderly, by direct military force or by proxy-led conflicts – Yemen is just one recent examples, causing endless human suffering to people who have never done any harm to their neighbors, let alone to Americans. Who could have any respect left for such a nation, called the United States of America, for the people behind such lying monsters?

    This behavior by the dying empire is driving allies and friends into the opposite camp – to the east, where the future lays, away from a globalized One-World-Order, towards a healthy and more equal multi-polar world. – It would be good, if our world body, the members of the United Nations, created in the name of Peace, would finally gather the courage and stand up against the two destroyer nations for the good of humanity, of the globe, and of Mother Earth.

  • CDC: 25% Of Adults Have Life-Impacting Disability

    According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), one in four adults report having a disability that impacts major life activities – “the most dominant one affecting mobility,” reports UPI. 

    The CDC measured six types of disability; mobility, cognition, hearing, vision, independent living and self-care, using data from 458,811 adults who participated in the 2016 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. 

    The report reveals that disability is more common among women, non-Hispanic American Indians / Alaska Natives, low-income adults, and those living in the South Census region of the US. 

    Disability affects about 41 percent of those age 65 and older, compared with younger adults at 16.6 percent and middle age people at 28.6 percent. Overall, 25.7 percent of participants reported any disability. –UPI

    “At some point in their lives, most people will either have a disability or know someone who has a one,” said Dr. Coleen Boyle, director of CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities. “Learning more about people with disabilities in the United States can help us better understand and meet their health needs.”

    The study also found that adult disability rates increase as income decreases.

    Among the younger age groups (18-44 years old), the most common type of disability is cognative, at 10.6%. Mobility was most prevalent among middle-aged respondants (45-64 years old) at 18.1%, as well as older people (65+) at 26.9%. 

    Specifically, mobility disability is nearly five times as common among middle-aged people — 45 to 64 years old — living below the poverty level compared with those whose income is twice that level.

    Hearing, mobility and independent living disabilities were higher among older adults. –UPI

    The study also reveals that more adults over 65-years-old with disabilities are covered by health insurance, have a primary doctor and get routine checkups, vs. middle-aged and younger adults with disabilities. 98% of Americans have access to Medicare coverage by the age of 65, however older adults reporting self-care disabilities come under increased financial strain due to higher medical needs. 

    “People with disabilities will benefit from care coordination and better access to healthcare and the health services they need, so that they adopt healthy behaviors and have better health,” said Dr. Georgina Peacock, director of CDC’s Division of Human Development and Disability. “Research showing how many people have a disability and differences in their access to healthcare can guide efforts by healthcare providers and public health practitioners to improve access to care for people with disabilities.”

  • The Unpleasant Truth About The 1941 Parachuting Of Rudolf Hess In England, Part 1

    Authored by Sylvain LaForest via Oriental Review,

    Even though a vast majority of the population admits the saying that history is written by those who win the wars, most are unwilling to question its core and rather choose to accept that what they’re being told by their government controlled education and mainstream media reflects reality.

    We have to keep in mind that our knowledge of the Second World War was mostly redacted by American and Western historians that carried over time a deeply fake idea of reality. In an ironic way, this makes of history a very interesting and lively subject today, since this overall incomprehension of WW2 allows a researcher to solve in July 2018 an event like the parachuting of Rudolf Hess in England on May 10th 1941, which has remained an event shrouded in mystery for 77 years.

    Its complexity and huge historical ramifications make it the most interesting enigma that we have left from the worst war that the world has ever known. If the event didn’t hide vital information, the British government would’ve revealed a long time ago its classified documents on the matter. For Hess’ landing in England isn’t a simple war spy flick, it’s actually at the heart of the shaping of our world. And Rudolf knew it.

    Upon his initial arrest, the Nazi first claimed that his name was Alfred Horn, then after his transfer in the hands of the British military, he finally revealed his real name and added: “I have come to save humanity.”

    What actually happened?

    Adolf Hitler and Rudolf Hess around 1934

    By 1941, Rudolf Hess had just been ranked by Hitler as the Number Three in the Third Reich hierarchy and bore the title of Deputy Fuhrer. Hess had been amongst the first to embrace Hitler to lead the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei; he had participated in the 1924 failed Munich Putsch that sent him along with his beloved leader in the Landsberg prison, where they wrote Mein Kampftogether, or Hitler’s guidebook for the future of Germany and the rest of Europe. He was arguably the most devoted and loyal friend Hitler ever had. Hence, the parachuting of this very high ranked Nazi in England in the midst of WW2 is not to be taken lightly under any circumstance. Hess had to carry a message of the outmost importance that could not be transmitted over a telephone line, a telegram, or any other form of communication that could be intercepted by intelligence agencies that were all on full alert 24/7 all over Europe in 1941.

    “Official” history had to create a well-crafted narrative to hide the real purpose of this mission. So, it says that Rudolf Hess got a Messerschmitt Bf 110, learned to pilot the plane in a few weeks, then flew to England by himself, was able to escape most radars by flying at a very low altitude towards Scotland, but then was spotted by the DCA in Scotland and jumped off his plane wearing a parachute and was later arrested by the British police. Some have disputed this version of the flight, saying that Hess was not in command of the plane that parachuted him, and even that the plane had been escorted by the Royal Air Force in the last stage of the flight since Hess was expected by a few insiders. Whatever the truth is on this first Act, fact is that he landed with a sore ankle on British soil on May 10th 1941. This is where the plot thickens, since hereafter, every ally authority at the time judged that the essence of his mission was not to be revealed to the public. In fact, had he not landed on a farm 10 miles from his intended target on the Duke of Hamilton estate, we would have never heard of the story.

    Many historians and journalists have leaned over the table as if facing a jigsaw puzzle, trying to fit the pieces to make some sense of the crazy Hess trip to England.

    If you’re amongst the few people still interested in history and you’re looking for some information on the matter, Wikipedia and multiple other mainstream narratives loosely reflect what we learn in schools. One explanation simply says that Hess had suddenly gone mad and tried to escape the fate of Germany on a solo flight. Others claim that Hess sought to win Hitler’s favors back by negotiating a truce with England on his own initiative. There is also the wild theory that Hess was trying to use the British monarchy to oust Churchill of power. Different theories will range all the way to the most popular version of an official mission under the order of Hitler that needed to negotiate peace with England before he attacked the Soviet Union, which would come the next month on June 22nd 1941.

    In almost every theory, historians agree that Hess had chosen to meet the Duke of Hamilton, an influential member of the Anglo-German Fellowship Association, since there is overwhelming evidence that the Royal Family was in favor of the Nazis and wanted peace with Germany, as opposed to Churchill who posed as the great Nazi slayer. Most of the theories will end by saying that neither the Duke of Hamilton, nor Churchill, nor anyone holding a high-profile position accepted to meet Hess, before he was sent in prison after saying what he had to say. And whatever that was, Hess had forgotten about it by the time he was prosecuted in Nuremberg after the war, since timely amnesia got ahold of his suddenly failing brain.

    If any of the aforementioned theories held any truth, Hess would have never suffered amnesia since they all bear their good share of political correctness and the British government would have no reason to keep the Hess files secret. Any of these versions could have been released to the public, since they became over time different explanations of the Hess journey in our history books. But the roots of most theories hold no logical ground and don’t even make sense, since it was Germany that was attacking England and not the other way around. Therefore, if Hess was really looking for a truce, he only needed to talk to Hitler. And if Adolf himself wanted peace with England, he just had to do nothing at all.

    That sudden Nuremberg amnesia might be the reason why Rudolf died at 93 eating daily steaks and lobsters, gardening flowers and watching TV in the golden and comfortable Spandau prison in Germany, instead of sharing the fate of most of his fellow Nazis whose lives ended at the end of a rope at the conclusion of the Nuremberg trials in 1946. Here again, the cloud of mystery around Hess has created an aura of doubt upon his official death by suicide that many swear was the murder of an invalid elder that knew too much and was ready to confess.

    01 Jan 1946, Nuremberg, Germany – The defendants at the Nuremberg Nazi trials. Pictured in the front row are: Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess, Joachim Von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel and Ernst Kaltenbrunner. In the back row are: Karl Doenitz, Erich Raeder, Baldur von Schirach, and Fritz Sauckel.

    Well, the truth about Hess in England is so much more interesting than anything mentioned above and is a master key to the full understanding of the stakes and objectives of WW2, which is why it was always hidden under the murky shadows of a historical enigma. And his mission was so important that we can now fully appreciate why such a high-ranking Nazi official was ordered to execute it.

    Historical speculation

    To confront the spectrum of narratives that our official history offers, especially in the case of an event that took place 77 years ago, independent researchers have to mostly rely on logical speculation, because of the lack of access to precious documentation that is kept confidential in locked vaults, usually for national security reasons. In the case of the Rudolf Hess trip to England, everything has been up to speculation, since no official reason or explanation was ever given by the British authorities. Every theory that has become mainstream and accepted over time is threaded over pure speculation and has absolutely nothing to substantiate it.

    Some were articles written by journalists at the time who claimed they had insider information that could never be verified, while other explanations were backed by simple made-up and fake information. The example of an alleged letter written by Hess that he had left for Hitler, saying that he was making this trip on his own will, has to be ranked with the rest of the propaganda.

    A 28-page report was discovered by Matthias Uhl of the German Historical Institute Moscow in the State Archive of the Russian Federation. The document was written in February 1948 by Hess’ adjutant Karlheinz Pintsch, whom eye-witnessed Hitler’s reaction when he learned that the Deputy Führer had parachuted in England. According to Pintsch, Hitler was not the least surprised, nor angry, and had full knowledge of the plan. Thus, a whole range of theories can be brushed away, since Hitler obviously had ordered the mission himself. Those theories only hold ground when facts are disregarded, which is often how mainstream media works.

    We have to accept that only one theory is right, but also that this theory won’t have much hard evidence to back it up until classified documents are released to the public. Therefore, the objective is to find the most likely. We have to rely on logical analysis, but above everything, circumstantial evidence might shed a magical ray of light and reveal the truth. I will apply this system on:

    (A) The importance of Hess in the hierarchy and the will to keep his mission secret to the rest of the world.

    (B) The timetable of the events of WW2: what happened before and after, and the impact that the mission had over the behavior changes of different nations.

    I have come to a definitive conclusion that has never been verbalized before. In fact, no one was even close to the truth. But it’s the only one that stands the scrutiny of cross-examination of circumstances. At the base, the initiative of a secret underground mission outside official channels of communication, for such an important Nazi, raises a most crucial question: why was Germany trying to hide this meeting from the rest of the world?

    To be continued…

  • Mexico Seizes Record 50 Tons Of Meth From Superlab

    After locating a massive drug laboratory near the town of Alcoyonqui, in Culiacán, Sinaloa, personnel of the Secretariat of the Navy seized 50 tons of methamphetamine, allegedly from the Sinaloa Cartel, in the most significant drug bust of this kind in the history of Mexico.

    According to Sin Embargo News, the Secretariat of the Navy (Semar) said the synthetic drug was discovered in a rustic laboratory and two separate underground bunkers. The military operation, which began on Thursday evening, involved roughly 50 troops. It was only until Friday morning was the size of the cache realized.

    A military source said the camp, of about 500 square meters, was operated by the Sinaloa Cartel. The laboratories were divided into four sections for the preparation of chemical precursor or base, rest, reactors, and cooling. Within the rural compound, there was a building for at least 30 people, but military personnel did not find anyone during the operation.

    The drug was in a rustic “narcolaboratorio” and in two hiding places underground (Source/ Semar, via Cuartoscuro) 

    The laboratory was equipped with heaters, pans and light plants (Source/ Semar, via Cuartoscuro)

    Only in the place of preparation, there were seven tons of meth ready for commercialization. (Source/ Semar, via Cuartoscuro)

    The narcotic was in drums and sacks, Semar said. Photo: Special, via Northwest (Source/ Semar, via Cuartoscuro)

    With the area fairly camouflaged from above and the surrounding town, troops found 180 drums, with a capacity of 60 liters (15.5 gallons) each, with stored meth. Authorities estimate 47 to 50 tons of the drug have been counted on site, both in liquid and solid forms.

    A high command of the Navy confirmed that the seized drug belongs to the Cartel of the Pacific or Cartel of Sinaloa. (Semar, via Cuartoscuro)

    Video: The Navy confiscated 50 tons of the drug in Sinaloa

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    “The largest confiscation of finished meth in the history of Sinaloa”, said the military official.

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    Military sources said the quality of the meth is high. A daily kitchen of this size can produce 200 kilos of meth (440 pounds). “The average cost per pound is $ 5,000 on the US border, and in Sinaloa about 25,000 pesos per pound (1,300 dollars) is paid,” said one of the military officers who participated in the operation.

    The meth superlab in Mexico is very disturbing because ultimately it will end up in America’s inner cities and rural towns. The Centers for Disease Control estimates drug overdose deaths based on a current flow of mortality data from the National Vital Statistics System has just reached a record of 71,568 Americans in 2017.

    That is a 6.6 percent jump in overdose deaths over 2016 and represents a rapid deterioration of America’s inner core: The middle class.

    Here is a simple question: If the economy is the “greatest ever” as President Trump has described on Twitter countless times, then why are record Americans dying from drug overdoses?

    As long as the American middle class continues to fracture, they will continue to demand low-cost drugs from Mexico.

  • Seymour Hersh And The Death Of Journalism

    Authored by James Bovard via The American Conservative,

    He won a Pulitzer for My Lai and cracked Abu Ghraib wide open. But this reporter is still a lonely breed.

    Seymour Hersh, Reporter: A Memoir, Sy Hersh. Knopf, June 2018, 368 pages

    When people are comforted by government lies, trafficking the truth becomes hellishly difficult. Disclosing damning facts is especially tricky when editors en masse lose their spines. These are some of the takeaways from legendary Seymour Hersh’s riveting new memoir, Reporter.   

    Shortly before Hersh started covering the Pentagon for the Associated Press in 1965, Arthur Sylvester, the assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, berated a group of war correspondents in Saigon: “Look, if you think any American official is going to tell you the truth, then you’re stupid. Did you hear that? Stupid.” Hersh was astonished by the “stunningly sedate” Pentagon press room, which to him resembled “a high-end social club.”

    Hersh never signed on to that stenographers’ pool. He was soon shocked to realize“the extent to which the men running the war would lie to protect their losing hand.” Hersh did heroic work in the late 1960s and early 1970s exposing the lies behind the Vietnam War. His New Yorker articles on the My Lai massacre scored a Pulitzer Prize and put atrocities in headlines where they remained till the war’s end.   

    Hersh’s 1974 expose on the CIA’s illegal spying on Americans helped spur one of the best congressional investigations of federal wrongdoing since World War II. (Many of the well-written reports from the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities remain regrettably relevant to the Leviathan in our time.) By the late 1970s, despite revelations of CIA assassinations and other atrocities, Hersh was chagrined that “[n]o one in the CIA had been prosecuted for the crimes that had been committed against the American people and the Constitution.” Welcome to Washington.

    Any journalist who has been hung out to dry will relish Hersh’s revelations of editors who flinched. After Hersh joined the Washington bureau of the New York Times, he hustled approval for an article going to the heart of foreign policy perfidy. Bureau chief Max Frankel finally approved a truncated version of Hersh’s pitch with the caveat that he should run the story by “Henry [Kissinger] and [CIA chief] Dick [Helms].” Hersh was horrified: “They were the architects of the idiocy and criminality I was desperate to write about.” A subsequent Washington bureau chief noted that the Times “was scared to death of being first on a controversial story that challenged the credibility of the government.”

    After Hersh exited the Times, snaring high-profile newshole became more challenging. When he pitched a piece to the New Yorker on the turmoil and coverups permeating the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama, editor Robert Gottlieb told him to “go for it.” But as Hersh was exiting Gottlieb’s office, the editor added: “Sy, I just want you to know that I don’t like controversy.” Gottlieb had the wrong dude. Elsewhere in the book, Hersh slams a gutless specimen at Life magazine, “If there is a journalism hell, that editor belongs there;” he also clobbers the Times business section’s “ass-kissing coterie of moronic editors.” On the other hand, throwing a typewriter through a plate glass window would perturb even the paper’s non-moronic editors.  

    Despite superb demolitions by Hersh and other reporters, the credibility of government agencies soon revived like a salamander growing a new tail. After Nixon was toppled, “the pendulum had swung back to a place where a president’s argument that national security trumps the people’s right to know was once again carrying weight with editors and publishers,” Hersh noted. A few weeks before the 9/11 attacks, New York Times columnist Flora Lewis, wrote that “there will probably never be a return to the… collusion with which the media used to treat presidents, and it is just as well.” But the collapse of the World Trade Center towers made the media more craven than at any time since Vietnam. Washington Post Pentagon correspondent Thomas Ricks complained that, in the lead-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, “There was an attitude among editors: ‘Look, we’re going to war, why do we even worry about all this contrary stuff?’” 

    Hersh’s career revived after 9/11 with a series of New Yorker exposés on the lies, failures, and shenanigans of the War on Terror. He soon “began to comprehend that 8 or 9 neoconservatives who were political outsiders in the Clinton years had essentially overthrown the government of the United States—with ease.” Hersh eventually concluded that “America’s neocons were a menace to civilization.” But, with the exception of his explosive work on Abu Ghraib and the torture scandal, his articles rarely received the attention they deserved. Hersh’s reports on the war on terror have been far more accurate and prescient than the vast majority of the stories touted by cable news, but he is rarely credited for his foresight.

    In recent years, Hersh has been criticized for writing articles that rely too heavily on too few, and not altogether authoritative sources. After his articles on the killing of Osama Bin Laden (he presented an alternative scenario that questioned the Pentagon’s version of events) and  White House claims about a 2013 Syrian chemical weapons attack were rejected by American publications, he published them in London Review of Books and has continued to publish his gumshoe reporting there and in places like Germany’s Welt am Sonntag. In his book, Hersh declares that “insider sources” are “what every reporter needs.” But some of the sources he now relies on  may have long since retired or no longer have access to 24 karat insider information.

    There are some excellent investigative journalists at New York Times, USA Today, and elsewhere, but the most visible media venues have often ignored the most potentially damning stories. The mainstream media continues to pursue Russian collusion in the 2016 presidential campaign like Captain Ahab chasing Moby Dick. At the same time, they almost completely ignore how U.S. government manipulations are paving the path to war with Iran. Most of the American media coverage of the Syrian civil war has been appalling, touting a fairytale of terrorist extremists as freedom fighters, and ignoring the flip-flops and contradictions in U.S. policy. In a 2013 interview, Hersh derided the American media’s fixation on “looking for [Pulitzer] prizes. It’s packaged journalism so you pick a target like are railway crossings safe and stuff like that.”

    Reporting nowadays rarely penetrates the Leviathan’s armor. Fourteen years after Hersh broke Abu Ghraib, many of the details of the post- 9/11 torture scandal remain unrevealed. Could anyone imagine Liuetenant William Calley, who was convicted of mass murder for the 1968 My Lai carnage, subsequently becoming a favorite media commentator on military ethics, foreign policy, and democracy? No. But the main culprits in the torture scandal and coverup—from George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, to former CIA chief John Brennan—are all regularly touted these days as founts of wisdom. The veneration of Bush, Cheney, and Brennan is one of the starkest measures of the failure of journalism in our time.

    Hersh’s Reporter has plenty of tips for journalists willing to vigorously hound government wrongdoing. But finding good venues for smoking guns may be more difficult now than ever. As Assistant Pentagon Secretary Sylvester scoffed at reporters in that 1965 Saigon briefing, “I don’t even have to talk to you people. I know how to deal with you through your editors and publishers back in the States.” Unfortunately, there are too many editors and publishers who would rather kowtow than fight.

  • Is US Government Developing Real-Life Supersoldier, Wonder-Dog In New Research Program? 

    The US army has announced a new proposal for what really looks like a program to develop supersoldiers and wonder-dogs capable of fast healing, optimized physiological and mental performance, withstanding extreme environments, and wearing high-tech bio-enhancements and other gear. 

    According to documents from the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), the “primary emphasis of the USSOCOM Biomedical, Human Performance, and Canine Research Program is to identify and develop techniques… for early intervention in life-threatening injuries, prolonged field care, human performance optimization, and canine medicine/performance.“

    The project will allocate $15 million on bio-enhancement studies which could result in soldiers with “enhanced physiological performance” that require a fraction of a normal night’s sleep, as well along with other “human performance optimization,” according to documents from the Defense Department. 

    The scope of the project includes: 

    1. Damage Control Resuscitation
      • Global Treatment Strategies and Next Generation Wound Management
      • Analgesia
      • Far Forward Blood, Blood Components, Blood Substitute, & Injectable Hemostatic
      • Austere Surgical Stabilization
    2. Prolonged Field Care (PFC)
      • Medical Sensors and Devices (includes rapidly deployable medical sensors and/or devices for extended care beyond initial trauma resuscitation; wireless biosensors that demonstrate physiological monitoring capabilities; see FOA for details)
    3. Portable Lab Assays and Diagnostics
      • Occupational and Environmental Health (OEH) Hazards
    4. Force Health Protection and Environmental Medicine
      • Optimal Acclimatization Strategy
      • Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosive (CBRNE) Rapid Diagnostics, Treatment, and Prophylaxis
      • Operational Monitoring (wireless biosensors in extreme environments and/or hazards materials exposure)
    5. Medical Simulation and Training Technologies
    6. Human Performance Optimization
      • Improve Sleep
      • Diagnostics for Performance Sustainment
      • Nutritional Status
      • Enhanced Physiological Performance
      • Enhanced Mental Performance
      • Optimal Performance Strategy
      • Pharmaceutical and Nutritional Supplement interactions
      • Wearable Devices
    7. Canine Medicine
      • Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosive (CBRNE) Canine Decontamination, Treatment, and PPE from possible exposure
      • Sensory Optimization and Protection
      • Trauma Resuscitation
      • Non-Traditional Anesthesia Protocols
      • Optimizing Canine Performance and Nutrition
      • Pre and Post Trauma Training / Behavioral Issues
      • Environmental Extremes

    This won’t be the first such program to enhance the US military’s assets. In 2017, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) announced a plethora of plans to create an elite fighting force. 

    One of the projects on the horizon is to create software which could be uploaded directly to the brain to give their soldiers heightened senses while also attempting to cure ailments such as blindness, paralysis and speech disorders creating an army of Captain Americas. –Express

    Darpa said the program – known as the Neural Engineering System Design (NESD) “aims to develop an implantable neural interface able to provide advanced signal resolution and data-transfer bandwidth between the brain and electronics.” 

    Program manager Phillip Alvelda said that the brain-computer interface (BCI) “program looks ahead to a future in which advanced neural devices offer improved fidelity, resolution, and precision sensory interface for therapeutic applications.”

    Another DARPA program aims to give super-human sight to soldiers. 

    The Soldier Centric Imaging via Computational Cameras (SCENICC) program is attempting to create a small contact lens which would improve fighters vision tenfold.

    Research began on this project in 2011, and DARPA hopes to “develop novel computational imaging capabilities and explore joint design of hardware and software to give war fighters access to systems that greatly enhance their awareness, security and survivability.”  –Express

    They’re also working on exoskeletons, such as the XOS2 – currently being developed in conjunction Raytheon – which could make soldiers up to 17 times stronger. 

    Apparently battery technology is the limiting factor for now. 

    Business Insider also provides this list of 8 technologies the Pentagon is pursuing to create supersoldiers: 

    1. Bulletproof clothes made of carbon chainmail

    Researchers tested the potential ballistic protection of graphene by firing tiny bullets of gold at it. They found that the material was stronger, more flexible, and lighter than both the ballistic plates and the Kevlar vests troops wear. And, a million layers of the stuff would be only 1 millimeter thick.

    MIT’s Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies is working on an effective manufacturing method for graphene-based chainmail, potentially giving troops better protection from a T-shirt than they currently get from bulky vests.

    2. Synthetic blood

    Synthetic blood would be much more efficient than natural cells. The most promising technology being investigated is a respirocyte, a theoretical red blood cell made from diamonds that could contain gasses at pressures of nearly 15,000 psi and exchange carbon dioxide and oxygen the same way real blood cells do.

    Super soldiers with respirocytes mixed with their natural blood would essentially have trillions of miniature air tanks inside their body, meaning they would never run out of breath and could spend hours underwater without other equipment.

    3. Seven-foot leaps and a 25 mph spring

    Scientists at MIT and other research universities are looking for ways to augment the human ankle and Achilles tendon with bionic boots that mimic kangaroo tendons. Humans equipped with such boots would be able to leap seven feet or more, sprint at inhuman speeds, and run all day without wearing out their muscles.

    4. Pain immunizations

    DARPA’s Persistence in Combat initiative aims to help soldiers bounce back almost immediately from wounds. Pain immunizations would work for 30 days and eliminate the inflammation that causes lasting agony after an injury. So, soldiers could feel the initial burst of anguish from a bullet strike, but the pain would fade in seconds. The soldiers could treat themselves and keep fighting until medically evacuated.

    5. Freedom from sleep

    Not all animals sleep the same way. DARPA wants to find a way to let humans sleep with only half of their brain at a time like whales and dolphins or possibly even skip sleep for long periods of time like ENU mice, a genetically-engineered species of mouse, do.

    6. Telepathy

    Not all brain implants look very comfortable.US Patent Application Richard A. Normann

    Part of DARPA’s “Brain Machine Interface” project is the development of better computer chips that can directly connect to a human brain via implants. In addition to allowing soldiers to control robotics with thought alone, this would allow squads to communicate via telepathy.

    While the chips are already improving, the project has some detractors. One offshoot of the research is the ability to remote control mice via implanted chips, and some defense scientists worry about the risk of troops having their minds hacked.

    7. Powered underwear

    While the Harvard researchers working on it prefer the term “soft exoskeleton,” the DARPA-funded robotic suit is essentially a series of fabric muscles worn under the clothes that assist the wearer in each step or movement. This reduces fatigue and increases strength without requiring the huge amounts of power that bulkier, rigid exoskeletons need.

    8. Gecko-like climbing gloves and shoes

    Geckos use tiny hairs on their feet to grab onto surfaces on the molecular level. While the “Z-Man” project wouldn’t necessarily give humans the ability to crawl along a ceiling like a gecko, special climbing gloves and shoes would allow soldiers to easily climb sheer rock faces or up skyscrapers without any other equipment, drastically easing an assault on the high ground.

    We can picture it now…

  • Have You Committed Your Three Felonies Today?

    Authored by James George Jatras via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    Several years ago the Commonwealth of Virginia enacted a law restricting firearms purchases to one per month. This was intended to discourage smuggling of weapons to urban areas outside Virginia with tight gun control laws and (unsurprisingly) high homicide rates. The law didn’t seem to do much good and in a rare outbreak of common sense was later repealed, though there’s recent misguided talk from Attorney General Mark Herring of reviving it.

    During its short period in force, the prohibition spawned a popular saying in the Old Dominion: “Buy one gun a month – it’s the law!”

    A similar attitude may be appropriate in light of an estimate that due to vague statutes and the proliferation of federal regulations – which have the force of law – we wake up in the morning, go to work, come home, eat dinner, and go to sleep  unaware we may have committed several federal crimes in the course of the day. The number varies but the average number of crimes per American seems to be about three.

    The more important point is that every one of us is probably guilty of something. “There is no one in the United States over the age of 18 who cannot be indicted for some federal crime,” retired Louisiana State University law professor John Baker told the Wall Street Journal in July 2011. “That is not an exaggeration.”

    • This means that if they want you, they can get you.
    • That in turn means that who gets charged, prosecuted, and jailed is a matter of the relevant officials’ discretion.
    • And that in turn means that discretion can and will be politicized.

    Like the boychiks used to say in the good ol’ NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs; Народный комиссариат внутренних дел): “Give Us the Man, and We Will Make the Case.” (I guess nowadays, we should say “person.”)

    Let’s stipulate that the true Rechtsstaat, where justice is administered in a politically neutral manner is few and far between in human history. The norm is politicized justice where holders of power – in an elective system, the winners – use the justice system to harass and terrorize the losers.

    But America today must be the only country that’s ever been so goofy that the losers are able to terrorize the winners. Whatever your feelings about the current administration, consider: the feds come in like gangbusters, breaking down doors, rousting targets from their beds, seizing their personal documents and devices, and subjecting them to piled-on charges and questioning designed to result in perjury, obstruction, and conspiracy charges – especially the phony crime of “lying to the FBI” – adding  up to decades in jail. Those accused are forced to plead guilty to a lesser charge or bankrupt themselves hoping they will be vindicated by a jury of sheep their peers, where the feds have a 90 percent-plus conviction rate. That’s treatment meted out to Paul Manafort, Mike Flynn, George Papadopoulos, Michael Cohen, and others.

    Conversely, clear evidence of crime, such as mishandling classified material, is a freebie: “No reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.” Oh, some of the emails are “personal?” That’s OK, you decide what’s what – we trust you! There’s a claim a foreign power hacked a computer server, which some compare to an act of war demanding retaliation – no, we don’t need to see the server itself, your contractor’s report is good enough for us! And while you’re at it, go ahead and purge your electronic records (even material you’re obligated to preserve) and smash up your smart phones and pull out SIM cards. Oh, hey, does anyone need immunity? No need to bargain, we’re happy to provide! That’s the treatment accorded to Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills, Tony Podesta, and their ilk.

    It’s no coincidence, Comrades, that this disparity is the work of denizens of a law enforcement and intelligence apparatus that is focused like a laser on two closely linked objectives: One, get Donald Trump. Two, at all costs, make sure that he cannot in any way move forward on his stated objective to improve ties with Russia. Those objectives are the two sides of the coin called Russiagate. All else, including the disparity of treatment given those close to Trump versus his opponents, is a function of Russiagate. Three other things also follow:

    • Trump’s powerlessness, even within his own administration. What kind of Chief Executive is reduced to tweeting what his subordinates ought to do – for example, providing Congress with documents demanded from the Department of Justice – versus ordering them to do it?
    • Trump’s personnel. People wonder, especially on foreign policy, why has Trump surrounded himself with a swarm of neoconservatives and Bush-retread Republicans? Maybe he is one of them. Or maybe anyone who dissented from the established warmongering line would be putting his head through a noose.
    • Flipping the “Russians did it” narrative: Among the President’s defenders, on say Fox News, no less than among his detractors, Russia is the enemy who (altogether now!) “interfered in our elections” in order to “undermine our democracy.” Mitt Romney was right! The only argument is over who was the intended beneficiary of Muscovite mendacity, Trump or Hillary – that’s the variable. The constant is that Putin is Hitler and only a traitor would want to get along with him. All sides agree that the Christopher Steele dossier is full of “Russian dirt” – though there’s literally zero actual evidence of Kremlin involvement but a lot pointing to Britain’s MI6 and GCHQ.

    The Russia! Russia! Russia! hysteria is sometimes called a new McCarthyism, but that’s unfair – to Tailgunner Joe. In his day, whatever his excesses, there really were Stalinist agents at the State Department. This new panic is nothing we’ve seen before, except maybe during the Salem witch frenzy of the 1690s.

    Which brings us to Maria Butina, a Russian grad student and Second Amendment advocate jailed (and refused bail) on thin allegations of unregistered lobbying. As Phil Giraldi observes:

    “If you are a Russian and you are caught talking to anyone in any way influential, there is potentially hell to pay because the FBI will be watching you. You are automatically assumed to be part of a conspiracy. Once ‘evidence’ is collected, you will be indicted and sent to prison, mostly to send a message to Moscow. It is the ultimate irony that how the old Soviet Union’s judiciary used to function is now becoming standing operating procedure in the United States.” 

    Butina has been portrayed as some kind of honey pot femme fatale, a cross between Anna Chapman and Natasha from “The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle,” using her Slavic charms to bewitch the naïve ΜOΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ crowd at the National Rifle Association. Among Butina’s nefarious activities: networking at the National Prayer Breakfast. If they arrested everyone with foreign government connections schmoozing at the Prayer Breakfast, they’d have to shut the thing down.  Honestly, I doubt even the investigators believe Butina is guilty of anything, and if she were any other nationality but Russian she wouldn’t be facing years in jail. [ATTENTION: A legal defense fund for Butina has now been formed!]

    Which brings us to the biggest threat to what’s left of our liberties as Americans. (No, not the yanking of the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan.) As is well known, we are facing an unprecedented, coordinated campaign of deplatforming, shadowbanning, flitering, and other foul means of putting dissenting voices into a digital GULag. While the glove belongs to tech giants and their executives, the hand inside is the government’s. Using Russian meddling as a pretext, companies that do billions of dollars of business with the federal government are only too happy to police the web of “suspected Russian-linked accounts.” And since, as Hillary says, Putin is the leader of the worldwide “authoritarian, white-supremacist, and xenophobic movement” who is “emboldening right-wing nationalists, separatists, racists, and even neo-Nazis,” anything and anybody that fails Virginia Senator Mark Warner’s or Mark Zuckerberg’s sniff test is now fair game. We are told that to sow discord and chaos Russian troll farms and social media ads target “divisive” issues related to race, Black Lives Matter, and Ferguson, absent which we’d all be holding hands singing Kumbaya. Connecting Putin and Russia with racism feeds into a cockamamie phantasmagoria of Crimethink concepts that increasingly are considered outside the protection of what was once quaintly known as free speech: hate speech, fake news, conspiracy theories, white nationalism, white supremacy, white privilege, patriarchy, “cisgenderism,” and many more. The idea of “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” is out the window.  Instead we have: anyone to the right of me gets what he deserves.

    While we hear a lot about the “input” end – violation of free speech rights, a deadly, valid concern – even more worrisome is the “output”: limiting what Americans can see and hear that differs from the official media line, itself largely a bulletin board for government sources. Unsurprisingly, that line is unfailingly for war and intervention. As Patrick Armstrong puts it, maybe the censors could just buy some old Soviet jamming equipment.

    It is hard to escape the notion that we are approaching the edge of some profound historical moment that will have far-reaching, literally life and death consequences, both domestically and internationally. In the period preceding World War I how many Europeans suspected that their lives would soon be forever changed – and, for millions of them, ended? Who in the years, say, 1910 to 1913, could have imagined that the decades of peace, progress, and civilization in which they had grown up, and which seemingly would continue indefinitely, instead would soon descend into a horror of industrial-scale slaughter, revolution, and brutal ideologies?

    Whether opposition to the gathering darkness can be effective is uncertain. But what is not uncertain is our duty to oppose it, even at the risk of committing three felonies a day. “Fellow Thought criminals – unite!”

    [A version of the foregoing was delivered to the Ron Paul Institute Media & War 2018 Conferenceon August 18, 2018.]

  • White House Counsel "Cooperating Extensively" With Obstruction Probe, Trump Says He Allowed It

    Update: Trump has commented on the story, saying he allowed McGahn “and all other requested members of the White House Staff” to fully cooperate with the Special Counsel. He also notes that the White House has given over one million pages of documents adding “No Collusion, No Obstruction. Witch Hunt!”

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    Separately, William Burck, attorney for Don McGahn, also said that Trump declined to assert privilege over McGahn’s testimony and answered the Special Counsel’s questions “fulsomely and honestly.”

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    * * *

    White House counsel Donald McGahn II, has been quietly cooperating “extensively” with special counsel Robert Mueller in his probe of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, according to an explosive New York Times report published Saturday afternoon.

    Sources told the Times that McGahn has had at least three voluntary interviews with Mueller’s team totaling 30 hours, in which he discussed accounts of multiple episodes at the center of Mueller’s probe into whether President Trump obstructed justice, as well as the president’s furor toward the Russia investigation and the ways in which he urged McGahn to respond to it.

    For a lawyer to share so much with investigators scrutinizing his client is unusual. Lawyers are rarely so open with investigators, not only because they are advocating on behalf of their clients but also because their conversations with clients are potentially shielded by attorney-client privilege, and in the case of presidents, executive privilege.

    Among the episodes McGahn reprotedly discussed with investigators is Trump’s firing last year of former FBI Director James Comey and the president’s repeated urging of Attorney General Jeff Sessions to claim oversight of the special counsel despite his recusal from Russia probes. McGahn was also centrally involved in Trump’s attempts to fire the special counsel, Robert Mueller, himself which investigators might not have discovered without him.

    Commenting on the report, Solomon L. Wisenberg, a deputy independent counsel in the Whitewater investigation “which did not have the same level of cooperation from President Bill Clinton’s lawyers”, said that “a prosecutor would kill for that. Oh my God, it would have been phenomenally helpful to us. It would have been like having the keys to the kingdom.”

    McGahn began cooperating with Mueller’s team last year after Trump’s first round of personal lawyers decided to give investigators as much information as possible, believing the president had nothing to hide.

    Trump assembled a personal legal team to defend him. He wanted to take on Mr. Mueller directly, attacking his credibility and impeding investigators. But two of his newly hired lawyers, John M. Dowd and Ty Cobb, have said they took Mr. Trump at his word that he did nothing wrong and sold him on an open-book strategy. As long as Mr. Trump and the White House cooperated with Mr. Mueller, they told him, they could bring an end to the investigation within months.

    Mr. McGahn, who had objected to Mr. Cobb’s hiring, was dubious, according to people he spoke to around that time. As White House counsel, not a personal lawyer, he viewed his role as protector of the presidency, not of Mr. Trump. Allowing a special counsel to root around the West Wing could set a precedent harmful to future administrations.

    However, McGahn eventually became concerned over his growing exposure in the investigation and began to suspect the president was setting him up to take the fall for any alleged obstruction of justice.

    McGahn and his own lawyer, William Burck, then decided for the White House counsel to do as much on his own to cooperate with Mueller. According to the NYT, McGahn was worried that Mr. Trump would ultimately blame him in the inquiry; the lawyer then told people he was determined to avoid the fate of the White House counsel for President Richard M. Nixon, John W. Dean, who was imprisoned in the Watergate scandal.

    The NYT also reports that Trump’s personal lawyers could have exercised attorney-client privilege to know what McGahn planned to tell investigators, but the president’s lawyers did not go through that process.

    The times adds that “it is not clear that Mr. Trump appreciates the extent to which Mr. McGahn has cooperated with the special counsel”, meaning that Trump will likely be quite angry once again by what he perceives as betrayal by one more person close to him. The reason for that is that the president “wrongly believed that Mr. McGahn would act as a personal lawyer would for clients and solely defend his interests to investigators”

    McGahn reportedly laid out how Mr. Trump tried to control the investigation, giving investigators a mix of information both potentially damaging and favorable to the president. Of note, McGahn cautioned to investigators that he never saw Trump overstep his legal authorities.

    Whether McGahn reveals any groundbreaking information remains unknown. The Times report, however, does underscore the sprawling nature and depth of Mueller’s probe, which has moved to scrutinize people closer to Trump’s inner circle in recent months amid calls from Trump’s personal legal team for it to wrap up before the November midterm elections.

    Asked for comment, the White House sought to quell the sense of tension.

    “The president and Don have a great relationship,” the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said in a statement. “He appreciates all the hard work he’s done, particularly his help and expertise with the judges, and the Supreme Court” nominees.

    For the real story keep an eye on Trump’s tweet: any imminent attacks on McGahn will not only indicate how much of a surprise today’s report is, but lead to further allegations that Trump is trying to further obstruct Mueller’s investigation.

  • Actor Jim Carrey's Art Goes Viral: "Our Missile, Our Crime" In Yemen

    Responding to the now confirmed fact that it was a laser-guided MK 82 bomb made by Lockheed Martin that killed 40 children while they were riding inside a school bus in northern Yemen over a week ago, actor Jim Carrey has highlighted the crime in his latest art. 

    In a now viral tweet posted to his official account Friday afternoon, Carrey wrote, “40 innocent children killed on a bus in Yemen.” And added, “Our ally. Our missile. Our crime.” 

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    Carrey referenced the US-Saudi coalition in Yemen responsible for dropping the 500-pound bomb on the bus as it made its way through a crowded market in Dahyan in Saada province on August 9th, which both the US State Department and the Saudis had defended as a “legitimate military operation”.

    The cartoon art, signed by Carrey’s hand as the artist, depicts a bus full of terrified children during the moment a missile marked with the American flag and “USA” hurtles toward them. The tweet garnered over 30,000 retweets and more than 68,000 likes less than 24 hours after it was published. 

    Carrey’s tweet corresponded with CNN’s Friday afternoon story confirming that the bomb which killed the children was supplied by the US as part of a batch of Lockheed Martin produced munitions transferred under a prior US-government approved contract.

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    CNN’s reporting came nearly a full week after our own coverage – Guided Bomb Fragments At Site Of Yemen Bus Airstrike Trace Back To Lockheed Martin -wherein we analyzed and traced markings from photos showing the side of bomb fragments found at the site to conclude it possessed Lockheed’s unique CAGE Code (or Commercial and Government Entity Code), based on the prior research of American journalist Ben Norton. 

    Regardless, we’re just glad that (to our surprise) CNN actually decided feature such a story that reveals the clear and shocking extent of ongoing US/Saudi/UAE war crimes in Yemen. And further that Hollywood celebrities like Jim Carrey would put aside the usual hyperpartisan domestic political narratives to focus on what’s really happening in the world. 

    Meanwhile, the Pentagon was silent when CNN asked about the provenance of the bomb, and refused to own up to any responsibility regarding the bus attack. 

    The United States has long tried to present its role in the conflict as attempting to stave off humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen, yet as even NPR confirmed while reporting from inside the country earlier this year the US military “has provided targeting information, equipment and aircraft refueling to the Saudi air campaign, which has been widely criticized for being indiscriminate and killing civilians in places like hospitals, funerals and homes.”

    And now with CNN and celebrity figures belatedly spotlighting Yemen (after years of silence going back to 2015), next week’s White House and State Department press briefings are sure to get interesting. 

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